Planning to customize your WMS? Your reasons may not impress the experts
Last year, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Blue Horseshoe's Warehousing for AX (WAX) and Transportation for AX (TRAX) solutions. By doing so, the software giant put itself on the track to "accelerating its Microsoft Dynamics AX supply chain management roadmap with plans to make the functionality available to the broader Dynamics AX channel partner and customer community," according to a Blue Horseshoe blog post announcing the acquisition.
Now, with Microsoft putting more effort into finessing its Dynamics AX Warehouse Management System, (via the Warehouse Mobile Device Portal that MSDynamicsWorld.com reported on August 2014, for example), a growing number of customers may be considering additional software customizations to their WMS that better tailor the solutions to their organizational needs.
Not so fast, writes ARC Advisory Group's Steve Banker in Don't Customize that Warehouse Management System! In addressing the impact of customizations to WMS solutions, and top-tier systems in particular, Banker gives a range of reasons to avoid customizations. While the Dynamics AX warehouse offering is not considered a top-tier WMS, Banker's arguments are still instructive. Here are a few selected quotes he makes:
- On avoiding costly upgrades: "If you have too many customizations and extensions, an upgrade rivals a brand new implementation in cost and time. "
-
Customization
is expensive: "The cost is not only what you pay the software vendor for
the customization, which in some cases can rival the cost of the software
license, it is also the extra fees you pay for maintaining the customized code."
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