Abstract
Warehouse plays one of the most vital part in any organization; it plays a fundamental role in facilitating global trade. A firm with a viable warehouse management system can easily meet customers demand. It also makes sure that the goods are readily available and delivered faster at a reasonable price to a network of global clients. However, if it is not properly structured and managed, it can cause a company not to be able to compete competitively globally. To this end, the overall aim of this study is to explore factors affecting warehouse performance to gain competitive market advantage. However, it was discovered that, warehouse management as a core enabler of manufacturing competitiveness continues to be under-appreciated by top management. To achieve the aforementioned goal, this study adopted a two-fold approach, firstly the study critically analysed a set of previous studies that were conducted on the warehouse management system within various business organisations. This helped in identifying gaps existing in the current literature. Secondly, the study used quantitative interviews with various experts from different manufacturing firms in order to address the identified flaws. The data collected from various consultations with industrial experts were analysed using deductive reasoning techniques. Manufacturing industry used a case study with three different firms located in South Africa, particularly in the province of Gauteng. The participants that took part in this study were chosen by means of convenience sampling approach. This method is preferred due to its ability to give the researcher an opportunity to select participants that were easily accessible. The initial findings of this study have revealed that the current warehouse management system put in place by most of the South African steel manufacturing firms is unintegrated and unautomated, and also formal picking systems is not in place, which in return hinders the industry from gaining global competitive market advantage. Additionally, the results demonstrated that there is a lack of zone pickings, which causes many movements and consequently damages the warehouse system. Furthermore, it was observed that most of staff working within the warehouse division are technology illiterate, which also create many delays. Despite, the fact that we live in a highly digitalized century, it is worrying to note that the appetite to adopt digital-based Warehouse Management System (WMS) is very low. It Is further recommended that Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) be introduced, it is a software-based application that is used to manage, control and manipulate warehouse processes, procedures in a way that deliver greater cost efficiencies to a manufacturing firm. ..
M.Tech. (Quality and Operations Management)