Sainsbury's has deployedvoice-directed product pickingat
three of its busiest distribution centres to increase
accuracy.
Sainsbury's has implemented voice technology from VoiteQ at
three of its distribution centres at Maltby, Stone and Skelton.
The firm's current
warehouse management system (WMS) - Disco - produced paper
pick-lists at those depots detailing the items that the pickers
needed to place into the cages for dispatch to its stores.
The new voice system will be used to replace paper pick lists
with voice directed work, making the process more efficient and
accurate.
The implementation consists of more than 100
Talkman devices that are being used 24 hours a day, seven days
a week. The Talkman is a wearable voice computer attached to a
securely fastened belt and headset and microphone worn by the
picker. This interacts with the user and the existing WMS, via
VoiteQ's VoiceMan middleware solution.
Instructions from VoiceMan are transmitted over a wireless
network to the operative who follows the location and quantity
instructions.
The operative responds with the verification of the product and
the quantity they've picked. The device updates VoiceMan in real
time, which in turn produces an output to update the host WMS with
each pick result.
The voice terminal recognises the picker's voice and can
understand key words used irrespective of their nationality or
accent.
Nick Symmons, Sainsbury's head of supply chain and convenience
systems, said, "Despite only recently implementing voice we have
already seen significant benefits - accuracy has improved by more
than 1% to 99.99%, and productivity is anticipated to increase by
the end of 2008.
"We have made a significant investment in this new system, but
believe with this increase in efficiency we will quickly attain our
return on investment."