Opinion VOICE
technology
Maximising the benefits of Voice technology with process improvements
By Gareth Giles Knopp, managing director, Voxware UK. M
uch has been written about the benefits of Voice technology, when deployed in distribution centres where manual handling of products is required. Voice
picking is now recognised as an industry best practice, but some enterprises realise more benefits than others – even when they implement the same Voice picking technology. Why? Deploying Voice gives logistics executives an opportunity to review the business processes inside the warehouse. Companies realise greater benefits when they take advantage of the Voice project to make effective business process improvements.
Warehouse managers tend to think about problems in terms of business processes, and solutions to those problems are found in process improvements. Installing Voice technology focuses such thinkers on order fulfilment – typically the most labour-intensive and expensive of all business processes inside the warehouse. Here, even small process improvements can return big benefits.
For example, one Voxware customer greatly improved its ROI by going from single order picking to batch picking with the deployment of Voice. The combination of Voice-driven efficiency and a changed business process multiplied ROI and hastened payback. Prior to the Voxware deployment, workers moved in a serpentine pattern through the facility, picking just one customer’s order. With some process improvements, they now move in a similar pattern but pick multiple orders in a single pass. Productivity shot up – partly because workers operate hands-free and unencumbered by paper pick lists, and partly due to the process improvement.
‘Business process reengineering’ has unfortunately been associated with costly, time- consuming projects that seemed to take forever to produce measurable benefits. But with advanced Voice software, enterprises can implement Voice picking and examine different process improvements simultaneously – in far less time and expense than one might think.
It is a bit paradoxical that, as technology
solutions in the warehouse have proliferated, the ability of the organisation to quickly respond to change has been reduced. As the number of interlocking systems has expanded, so has the business process improvement challenge. Too often a change to one system necessitates a change to others. Warehouse managers are dismayed when a seemingly simple process change cannot be implemented apart from a multi-month programming project and huge expense. Thus, organisations tend to live with outdated processes for longer than they would care.
Voice picking is active with the front-line labour force. It must integrate backwards, so to speak, with the order fulfilment system and sometimes other systems as well. Today, new advancements in Voice software make it far easier to both implement and change Voice processes – and hence promote reengineering when it is needed. What kind of Voice software helps an enterprise to be nimble and flexible in its business processes? Here are three characteristics:
• Visual process diagrams. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. When the Voice software solution is based on a visual design tool, then the Voice business process can be diagrammed. This facilitates discussion about a process, and promotes the ability to prototype different approaches – without actually going to all the expense to program a full solution.
• Configurability. When the Voice picking solution is configured instead of custom coded, then it can be changed quickly. By offering a rich yet easily accessible set of options, a Voice software product further enables prototyping because different processes can be deployed and tested without incurring the expense to modify custom code.
• Message-based interfaces. Voice systems are all about data – processing waves, orders, and tasks which originate in the WMS. In the past, it was thought that hard-wired ‘direct connect’ integration was the best way to go, but organisations soon realised that this approach is very expensive to modify – often requiring the
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Voice picking is now recognised as an industry best practice, but some enterprises realise more benefits than others – even when they implement the same Voice picking technology.
WMS code to be opened up and changed (never a low-cost endeavour). When the voice software employs a loosely-coupled and message-based interface, then the two systems are connected ‘at arm’s length’, so to speak. This makes it possible, for example, to make business process changes in the voice solution using the above-mentioned capabilities – without having to touch the WMS.
Nimbleness and flexibility are all about software and how it is architected. While many companies have secured basic operational benefits by introducing Voice technology to the warehouse, some have left achievable ROI on the table by not taking advantage of the Voice deployment to tweak their business processes. Still more ROI is possible over the long term when the Voice software possesses visual process diagramming, configurability, and message- based interfaces – because these qualities enable easy prototyping of business processes and reduce the cost of change when compared to traditional Voice picking solutions.
March 2011
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT 37
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