The use of voice technology in the warehouse is rapidly moving towards becoming an industry standard, particularly for order picking.
The list of potential benefits for the supply chain is impressive:
- Increased accuracy
- Increased productivity
- Paperless operations
- Hands-free & Eyes free for easier operation and improved safety
- Real-time feedback for proactive management
- Real-time stock updating
- Reduced training time, so pickers are more productive sooner
The biggest benefits are obtained in low margin, high volume, labour intensive case picking operations, and therefore, Grocery Retailers and Wholesalers lead the way.
Accuracy and productivity are critical and the use of voice technology delivers this by utilising the most natural method of message delivery – the voice. Hands-free operation is also particularly suitable for picking Frozen and Chilled Foods, where gloves hamper the handling of paper or the use of radio data terminals. Complex information, like catch weights, is easily captured and removes the necessity for keying, or re-keying data. Improved accuracy can also markedly reduce the need for order checking.
Marketplace view
The marketplace has naturally split into two camps; those who have adopted partnerships with middleware providers and those who have opted for native solutions.
Middleware solutions:
By using the solution offered by a voice supplier, for example Vocollect, the Warehouse Management System (WMS) provider will interface that solution to provide the customer with voice-enabled activity (using picking only). This gets the customer off the ground quickly, but sacrifices functionality.
Native solutions:
These are solutions that offer the customer the path of least risk and at the same time, closely mirror the existing functionality for an operation. They also provide a natural path of extended voice enablement into areas such as truck movements and stock management.
AquiTec Native Voice
We chose native voice as the way forward to enable our software with industry best practice, voice directed activities and a development path for activities other then picking.
Included in our voice directed suite are such elements as:
- Store order picking
- 2-man picking
- Container specific picking
- Pick-By-Line
- Real-time perpetual inventory
Planned progress for voice functionality includes:
- Pallet movements
- Pallet put-away
- Pick face replenishment
- Vehicle loading
Partnership
As a supply chain software developer and vendor it was clear from the beginning that we would need to partner with a hardware provider to be able to offer our clients voice-directed activities. We chose the voice recognition industry leader Vocollect as partner for the development of our native voice directed offering. |
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