Warehouse Execution Systems have been around in various forms for a number of years, but they are still not well understood and have also been associated most with heavily automated systems - not so much for more manual or hybrid DCs. There has often been confusion about how Warehouse Execution and Warehouse Management Systems differ – and how they can complement each other. This session will help clarify these areas and more, focusing on the new capabilities advanced WES solutions bring to distribution, including strategic and tactical simulation, waveless picking, advanced resource allocation and dynamic reallocation, optimal order batch creation, optimization of picking sub-systems from sortation to mobile robots, and more. Combine this with artificial intelligence and machine learning, this leads to a much improved product flow – or what we might call “Flow Distribution” – and the realization of the truly "smart" distribution center. We will also detail what capabilities are available today and what we can expect to see over the next few years.