Mantis
Creating the New DNA of WMS

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly tested every industry beyond measure and changed a great deal of things in terms of their daily operations. The retail industry, particularly, is one of the sectors to witness the biggest shockwaves. From nationwide lockdowns, travel bans, and brick and mortar store closures to the increasing popularity of online shopping, various disruptions have forced both traditional and digital-first retailers to rewrite their business playbooks and find innovative ways to continue hassle-free operations.

In their pursuit of charting a new course through the COVID-19 crisis, a common roadblock that many retailers are now facing is around virtualizing their warehouse operations. The retail business warehouses form the foundation of entire operational flow as it regulates the goods flow within supply chains. However, considering the volume of tasks associated with efficient warehouse management, promptly automating all of its mammoth workflows is often easier said than done. Most market available warehouse automation solutions take somewhere between six to nine months to be properly set up. So how can retail businesses reduce the lengthy implementation time and quickly pivot to virtualized operations?

Enter Mantis, a leading international WMS and logistics software and solutions vendor. With its flagship Logistics Vision Suite (LVS), Mantis helps retail businesses make a seamless and quick transition (almost half the time compared to the competitors) from the conventional brick and mortar business model to an online one. LVS is a customizable, do-it-yourself solution, giving retail businesses the provision to implement it themselves and make modifications according to their requirements. “In fact, we haven’t ever needed to send our consultants out to the site. It has always been done remotely,” says Lee Rector, executive vice president of Mantis. Once integrated, the warehouse automation solution gives retailers optimal order fulfillment capability through real-time inventory monitoring, inventory planning and optimization, vehicle route optimization, proof of delivery, and fleet management. “With Mantis’ warehouse automation solution and round-the-clock support, our clients have witnessed significant growth in their retail businesses,” Rector adds further.

It is important to note that Mantis’ LVS is based on Microsoft’s latest .NET software framework and supports the two most popular relational database management system (RDBMS) systems, i.e., Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. This framework makes it a highly adaptable system that can gather data on all logistics activities in real-time from a multitude of sources. The software also consists of a smart combination of proven systems for features such as voice picking, pick/sort-to-light/put-wall, pick-to-cart, and more.

Because of this, LVS can go well beyond the basic management of warehouses to offer extended capabilities, such as logistics billing and costing, customer service, supply chain intelligence, physical document archive management, manufacturing execution system, and more. LVS also has a user-friendly interface with multi-lingual software employing an incredible personalization mechanism. Moreover, users can access LVS from radio frequency terminals, voice terminals, and Microsoft Windows PCs, tablets, and smartphones, further increasing the overall accessibility and ease of operations.

With Mantis’ warehouse automation solution and round-the-clock support, our clients have witnessed significant growth in their retail businesses

Currently, more than 550 enterprises across many verticals such as consumer products, food and beverage, fashion, pharmaceuticals and medical, cosmetics, and more rely on LVS to run and optimize their logistics operations. Highlighting a particular client success story, Rector shares an instance wherein Mantis helped a third-party logistics (3PL) company overcome the roadblocks in business scalability. The client was working predominantly in the apparel industry and had entered a rapid growth phase recently. The challenge for the client at this juncture was to increase their activity from 5,000 to 20,000 lines a day as their web-based WMS was not designed to handle such increased load. Additionally, the 3PL company was also struggling to create custom processes for each of its partners. Mantis took up the challenge right at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and helped the client meet their target timeline—letting them make more deliveries under budget. At present, the client is running 30,000 lines a day.

Success stories like these undoubtedly serve as testaments to Mantis’ remarkable solutions in the supply chain space. Looking forward, Mantis is now planning to launch the fourth version of LVS and further cement its position as a market leader. In the next software release, the company intends to customize and create its own voice commands and vision picking systems. Furthermore, Mantis is also planning to expand its geographical footprint out in South America and Asia. “We are looking forward to exponential development in the next 24 months as we see our customer base growing by about 15 to 17 percent in the coming days,” concludes Rector.