OMS

An order management system (OMS) is an information system that handles the lifecycle of a customer's order from initial capture through fulfillment and after-sales service. It coordinates orders placed across multiple sales channels—online, in-store, catalog—and provides real-time visibility into order status, inventory, and fulfillment options.

Key functions include order capture and validation, price and discount rules, credit checks, fraud screening, inventory visibility across locations, allocation and routing to appropriate fulfillment centers, split fulfillment across warehouses, picking, packing, shipping, and returns processing. An OMS often integrates with ERP systems, warehousing management systems, CRM, e-commerce platforms, payment processors, and transportation management systems to synchronize data and automate workflows.

Deployment options range from on-premises to cloud-based or hybrid solutions. Benefits typically include improved order accuracy, shorter order cycle times, better inventory control and demand planning, seamless multi-channel fulfillment, enhanced customer communications, and consolidated reporting.

Challenges involve integrating data across disparate systems, maintaining master data quality, scaling for peak demand, customizing workflows, security and compliance, and managing change across organizations. Common metrics include perfect order rate, order cycle time, fill rate, backorder rate, and revenue per order.

Although OMS is most often used to describe order lifecycle software in commerce and manufacturing, the acronym can refer to other things in different contexts. In logistics and enterprise software, however, OMS denotes a system designed to manage orders end to end.