Analysis Voice end user report
place,” said Pedigree Wholesale’s financial to PDA was the cost of upgrading the existing produce, for example. Le Corre added that
director, Brian Mellors. “We also wanted to proprietary system and the advantages of the productivity gains from a PDA environment
be able to better verify our order picking multi-modal; such as the ability to seamlessly for Voice are similar to a proprietary platform.
process.” Mellors added that Pedigree work with Voice and standard data collection However, he said, the main differences are
Wholesale’s WMS was introduced as part methodologies in one environment. He added that with the PDA there is no operator training,
of the overall process, although this was that this system also afforded Système U which has presented Système U with a
fully running before the company had fully the ability to standardise on hardware used significant reduction in cost. “Also,” continued
implemented the Accord Voice solution. throughout the organisation – in the store, in Le Corre, “the company can now do more
“The Accord Voice system is very convenient the warehouse and on the road. In addition, to support additional warehouse operators
because it works on natural voice technology, the system required no pre-registry for and standardise on a small number of
allowing the operator to create his or her operators; that is, speech rather than Voice hardware vendors.”
own voice profile,” said Mellors, who added:
“BCP was very involved with the implemen -
tation process, and provided all the backup
and training, and a certain amount of hand-
“
In order to track picker productivity, topVOX sends time-stamped
information back to the WMS, so we know when a picker picked the
holding as we went live with various aspects
of the system, bit by bit. We did all the basic
items and how long it took.”
installation in-house; setting up the data and – Trevor Martin, Cooper Booth Wholesale.
designing the warehouse layout to make the
new solution work as effectively as possible.” recognition means the solution is immediately Many beer distributors still rely on paper pick
operational – a distinct advantage for lists for case picking tasks. However, one
Système U, the French retailers’ cooperative, supporting Système U’s high percentage such distributor that has just made the
installed Aldata GOLD Vocal in 2004 based of seasonal and temporary employees. switch to Voice is Suncoast Beverage Sales
on a proprietary system. In 2009, this was According to Le Corre, the benefits of the (Suncoast). Suncoast distributes more than
switched to the second-generation version system, which has a real-time interface with 17,000 cases of beverages daily and
based on the PDA open platform as part of the company’s WMS, include: perpetual approximately 5 million cases annually. The
a system replacement programme. Ronan inventory management and traceability of company’s decision to make the change
Le Corre, logistics director at Système U, all products – particularly those that need to an automated system was no small one,
explained that the rationale behind the move to be tracked for legislative reasons; meat and it had to be executed with minimal
interference to the operation of its distribution
centre, which functions 16 hours per day,
6 days a week. The change involved not
only moving to Voice-directed picking
technology, but also to utilising a Warehouse
Control System (WCS) spanning the entire
warehouse environment; including picking,
inventory control and shipping. Since going
live with PickDirector, designed and installed
by Dematic, Suncoast has reportedly seen
reduced order errors, faster truck loading
and realised a 20 per cent increase in
cases-per-labour-hour productivity. It has
decreased its employees working in the
warehouse because PickDirector is now
telling them what to pull and where to load
it, significantly reducing pick and load time.
“We saw a major decrease in our errors in
the warehouse going onto the trucks from
night loading,” commented Tim Mitchell,
president of Suncoast. “Our latest numbers
show a 99.9 per cent accuracy rate.” >>
DSV Solutions Ireland Direct sourced its Voice-
directed system from Vocollect partner Heavey
RF. The Voice system runs off its own server.
DSV sends a file to the server containing
information for the day’s pick and dispatch –
these orders are then released in coordination
with the resources available.
www.logisticsit.com
MANUFACTURING
July 2009 &LOGISTICSIT
9
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60