No. 03 · The observatory
Warehouse management
One WMS ran 37 years. Its admin bought spare parts on eBay.
- Status
- Open
- Rank
- 27 of 35 in the atlas
- Scored
- 2026-10-05
- Report
- Back to the study
- Rank
- 27 of 35, published score 50.5
- Scoring date
- 2026-10-05, reported 2026-10-09
- Buyable
- $1.4B buyable midpoint, $1.0B to $2.1B recorded legacy spend
- Factors
- size 3, pain 3.3, AI fit 2, lock-in 1.5, crowding 3.7
- Coverage
- none recorded; AI-native challenger recorded
Warehouse management
Ranked 28 of 35 at 50.5 out of 100.
Warehouse execution software: inventory, labor, automation and yard orchestration.
What the evidence says
The checked evidence corroborates bounded warehouse pain. One buyer’s own publication records a DEC-era WMS that ran 37 years. It needed eBay-sourced parts before a hardware upgrade. A second anecdote documents fragmented, non-integrated systems at Verve.
Sources:
- After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System
- Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount
Providers
The card checked three incumbents: Manhattan, Blue Yonder and Infios. All three report portfolio-wide customer counts, not WMS installs. Manhattan reports 1,200-plus; Blue Yonder over 3,000; Infios over 5,000. Vendor analyst recognitions are self-cited. No ranking is supported.
DOSS is the recorded challenger. Its published case documents Verve’s eight-week migration off a homegrown stack. The AI-native label rests on vendor self-designation.
Sources:
- Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount
- DOSS | Adaptive ERP and Operations Cloud
- DOSS Raises $18M Series A Led by Theory Ventures
- Warehouse Management Systems & WMS Solutions | Manhattan Associates
- About Us | Manhattan
- Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder
- About | Blue Yonder
- Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better
- Infios story
The pain
The Exchange’s DEC-era WMS served its distribution centers for 37 years. Parts had to be bought on eBay to keep the system running.
Verve’s operations were scattered across five disconnected systems. Its own officer described non-integrated systems before consolidation.
Sources:
- After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System
- Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount
Events
The Exchange decommissioned its legacy WMS after a completed Blue Yonder replacement. The $516,000 figure is expected savings, not audited.
DOSS migrated Verve off its homegrown data warehouse in eight weeks. The account is vendor-published, not independently audited.
Sources:
- After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System
- Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount
Limits
Both anecdotes are single-organisation accounts. Neither establishes prevalence or a failure rate. Incumbent counts are portfolio-wide, not WMS-only installs.
Sources:
- About Us | Manhattan
- Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder
- About | Blue Yonder
- Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better
- Infios story
- Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount
- DOSS | Adaptive ERP and Operations Cloud
- DOSS Raises $18M Series A Led by Theory Ventures
- After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System
In their words
we had to buy parts from eBay
Source: Exchange IT System Administrator Lead, 2024-01-17
We had non-integrated systems
Relevant workflows
6 recorded openings. A missing mapped round is a coverage gap, not an empty field.
| Workflow | Index | Labour | AI use | Core | Mapped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dock appointment scheduling and yard management warehouse-management:wf_dock_yard | 167 | $13.4B | 14% | non-core | 1 |
| Wave planning, labor assignment and training warehouse-management:wf_wave_labor | 130 | $25.5B | 0% | non-core | 1 |
| Exception handling, interface failures and carrier claims warehouse-management:wf_exceptions | 61 | $24.7B | 0% | non-core | 3 |
| Inbound receiving and putaway warehouse-management:wf_receive_putaway | -432 | $52.6B | 0% | touches core | 1 |
| Order picking, packing and shipping warehouse-management:wf_pick_pack_ship | -442 | $152.1B | 0% | touches core | 2 |
| Inventory control, cycle counting and slotting warehouse-management:wf_inventory_control | -458 | $29.3B | 10% | touches core | 2 |
Recorded providers
Provider claims carry their recorded kind and citations. Undisclosed figures stay undisclosed.
Recorded inputs
Raw scored inputs exactly as frozen. Values and units keep their recorded definitions.
| Factor | Input | Value | Count | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pain | keep_alive_share | 0.47297297297297297 | 74 | 3 |
| pain | backend_failure_share | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
| pain | app_rating_inverted | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
| pain | failed_rate | 0.625 | 8 | 4 |
| pain | s3_grade | weak | 1 | 3 |
| pain | mean | 3.3333333333333335 | unavailable | 3.3 |
| lockin | award_duration_months | 12 | 65 | 1 |
| lockin | noncompetitive_share | 0 | 30 | 1 |
| lockin | replacement_duration_months | 48 | 3 | 3 |
| lockin | regulator_approval | 1 | 1 | |
| lockin | mean | 1.5 | unavailable | 1.5 |
| crowding | ai_native_traction | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| crowding | funding_per_billion | 182321437.90396014 | 10 | 5 |
| crowding | yc_2024_plus | 8 | 8 | 3 |
| crowding | mean | 3.6666666666666665 | unavailable | 3.7 |
| size | users_midpoint | 9100 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | buyers_mid | 491373 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | midpoint | 1431537634.852818 | unavailable | unavailable |
| ai_fit | mean | 2.4985714285714287 | 12 | 2 |
| ai_fit | unanswered | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
Recorded sources
43 recorded citations. Each link lands on the sources catalogue.
| Source | Locator |
|---|---|
| Warehouse Management Systems & WMS Solutions | Manhattan Associates | captured lines L74-L77 (ActiveWarehouse product introduction) |
| About Us | Manhattan | captured line L93 (Gartner WMS leader badge) |
| Warehouse Management Systems & WMS Solutions | Manhattan Associates | captured lines L74-L77 (product introduction) |
| About Us | Manhattan | captured lines L89, L93 (1,200+ customers; 18-time Gartner WMS leader) |
| About Us | Manhattan | captured lines L89 and L187 (1,200+ Global Customers; over 1,200 customers) |
| Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder | captured lines L326-L342 (product heading and solution description) |
| Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder | captured lines L357-L367 (Gartner and Nucleus recognition) |
| About | Blue Yonder | captured line L365 (more than 3,000 customers) |
| About | Blue Yonder | captured line L365 (more than 3,000 of our customers) |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | captured lines L40-L44 (solutions navigation) and L124-L127 (Warehouse Management section) |
| Infios story | captured lines L116-L120 and L139-L141 (HighJump origin, Korber/KKR venture, 2025 rebrand) |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | captured line L69 (Gartner WMS leader, eighth year) and L141-L149 (customer/country counters) |
| Infios story | captured line L105 (5,000+ customers in over 70 countries) |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | captured lines L141-L149 (5,000 + customers worldwide; 70 + countries) |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | captured lines L110-L123 (challenge, eight-week migration, outcomes) and L27 (Warehouse Management module navigation) |
| DOSS | Adaptive ERP and Operations Cloud | captured line L76 (AI-Native Operating System hero) |
| DOSS Raises $18M Series A Led by Theory Ventures | captured lines L115-L125 (2022 GPT demonstration, LLM-agent ergonomics, hybrid database) and L146 (future copilot) |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | captured line L80 (December 18, 2025 publication date) |
| DOSS | Adaptive ERP and Operations Cloud | captured homepage, accessed 2026-10-06 |
| Warehouse Management Systems & WMS Solutions | Manhattan Associates | captured lines L74-L77 (ActiveWarehouse) |
| About Us | Manhattan | captured lines L89, L93 (1,200+; 18-time leader) |
| Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder | captured lines L326-L342, L361 (WMS product; leader claim) |
| About | Blue Yonder | captured line L365 (3,000+ customers) |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | captured lines L40-L44, L69, L141-L149 (product; leader; counters) |
| Infios story | captured lines L105, L116-L120, L139-L141 (customers; lineage) |
| About Us | Manhattan | captured lines L89, L93 (customer count and leader badge) |
| Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder | captured line L361 (18 consecutive Gartner WMS leader claim) |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | captured line L69 (leader, eighth year) |
| Infios story | captured line L105 (5,000+ customers) |
| After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System | captured line L66 (Jones eBay-parts quotation) and L58, L67 (37-year service, JDA replacement) |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | captured lines L108-L114 (fragmented-data challenge narrative) |
| After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System | captured lines L58-L70 (article body) |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | captured lines L98-L123 (challenge, migration, outcomes) |
| After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System | captured lines L58-L70 (decommissioning narrative, JDA replacement, Gruenstadt May 2023, $516,000 expected savings) |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | captured lines L110-L114 (challenge), L118 (eight-week migration), L98-L101 and L121-L123 (reported outcomes) |
| After 37 Years, Exchange Pulls the Plug on Legacy Warehouse Management System | |
| Verve Coffee Case Study: Scaling Without Headcount | |
| About Us | Manhattan | |
| Warehouse Management Systems & WMS Solutions | Manhattan Associates | |
| Warehouse Management System (WMS) | Blue Yonder | |
| About | Blue Yonder | |
| Infios - Relentlessly making supply chains better | |
| Infios story |
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