Speak and you will find
June 1st 2007

Distribution centres that implement voice-enabled logistics technology are experiencing significant benefits, including increases in productivity, high order accuracy, reduced training time for new workers and improved safety, says Voxware's Richard Hyne

Voice-enabled technology can enhance a number of distribution centre tasks, including order picking, receiving, put-away, loading, cycle counting, inventory control, returns and yard management.

The picking task typically accounts for 42 percent of the average distribution centre's labour costs. Distribution centres therefore usually gain the most benefit from applying voice-enabled logistics technology to picking and usually begin with a picking implementation.

Productivity The productivity increases that voice technology provides vary depending on the system in use prior to voice implementation. Increases of 15 percent, however, are not uncommon.

Somerfield, a UK based Voxware customer, saw favourable productivity increases by deployed voice in its distribution centres. "It's hard to believe that a 10-20% productivity improvement can be achieved but we have proved it can," says Justin Cash, regional general manager of Wincanton, a European supply chain solutions provider that manages about two thirds of Somerfield's distribution centres.

The greatest increases often happen at distribution centres that transition from paper-based picking systems. Distribution centres that already have a technologybased picking operation, however, can still find improvements from implementing voice technology For example, consider the worker who uses a handheld bar code scanner as he performs picking tasks. He must first view the screen to learn where to pick the next product. He travels to the picking location, picks up the scanner, scans the location ID bar code, puts down the scanner, grabs the product, picks up the scanner, presses a key to indicate that he has completed the pick and then repeats the cycle. Over the course of a shift, the worker spends a great deal of time handling the computer – time he could use more productively.

Voice-enabled logistics technology eliminates all that device handling. With voice, the worker hears the next picking location through his headset and immediately begins moving there. When he arrives, he speaks a location check digit or product code to confirm that he's at the correct location and hears the pick quantity.

After he picks the product, he verbally confirms the quantity he picked and hears the next picking location, all in an uninterrupted process. It is this streamlined process in which the worker's hands and eyes are free that accounts for much of the productivity gain that voice-enabled technology provides.

Accuracy The built-in confirmations of picking locations and quantities picked provide voice technology's order accuracy rates of up to 99.95 percent. If a worker goes to an incorrect location and therefore speaks an incorrect check digit, the voice system immediately corrects him and if necessary, provides directions to the correct location.

If a worker picks an incorrect number of items, the voice system recognises the mistake immediately when the worker speaks the number of items he picked. The voice system then corrects the worker.

Distribution centres that implement voiceenabled logistics technology often find that they no longer need separate workers to check shipments for accuracy before they leave the centres.

Safety Taking a mobile computer out of the hands of a worker also improves safety. A worker who uses voice-enabled logistics technology never needs to look away from his work. This enables him to remain alert to any of the many hazards that can be present in a distribution centre environment. In addition, both of the worker's hands are always available to handle product and mechanical equipment.

Worker Training Voice technology enables distribution centres to greatly reduce training time for new workers.

"Our training time has decreased by 50% as a result of implementing Voxware's voiceenabled logistics system," says Eddie Mcgilveray, WMS project manager at Argos.

Voice technology allows distribution centres to have new workers trained, deployed and productive in as little as two hours. A voice-enabled logistics system does this by providing a virtual supervisor in the worker's ear. It guides workers through their tasks, step-by-step, with words spoken by a human voice in the worker's native language.

If a worker has a question, he can speak it to the system in his own language or dialect.

The system will understand and respond with the information the worker needs.

These benefits are particularly important to distribution centres that experience seasonal peaks in business, because they allow temporary workers to become productive quickly and with little attention from supervisors. The voice system's continuous prompting also helps keep less motivated workers focused on their tasks.

Technology Recent advances in voice-enabled logistics software – such as that produced by Voxware – bring new benefits to distribution centres, including decreased costs, shorter implementation times and onsite adaptability.

Modern voice-enabled logistics software can run on certified Windows CE mobile computers with the proper audio and memory configurations. This reduces the total cost of ownership by giving users a wider choice of hardware from a variety of leading manufacturers. Open software that's written to industry standards, such as HTML and VoiceXML, makes this possible. It also makes possible the integration of voice with other technologies, such as bar code scanning and RFID in multi-modal systems.

Component-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA) software enables voice solution providers to deliver voice-enabled logistics systems without custom programming. These SOA-based software services and graphical user interface (GUI) software toolsets are designed to be utilised by non-programmers, thus eliminating nearly all of the custom coding efforts and costly customisation associated with conventional voice solutions. This offers greater flexibility in response to changes inherent in the logistics industry.

Voice-enabled logistics systems offer proven benefits, including high productivity, high order accuracy, improved worker safety and fast worker training. By making use of current technology such as service-oriented architecture and other industry standards, the latest voice logistics software products provide the additional benefits of speedy implementation, hardware flexibility and onsite adaptability, enabling rapid and cost effective responses to distribution centre changes.