Voice and WMS Special technology report
where managers continually look for ways to improve business processes,” he said.
David Stanhope, CEO
“Configurable software enables enterprises to control the cost of change far more effectively, whilst making it possible to evolve the
use of Voice within the operation.”
In Gerrard’s view, industry consolidation is another major development, with the acquisition of US-based Vocollect by Intermec earlier this year. “Vocollect was the last boutique manufacturer of Voice-only devices,” he said, “so this sets up a showdown between the major manufacturers for market share in the arena of rugged Voice-capable mobility devices. Naturally this benefits customers because device prices will continue to drop, allowing for wider marketplace adoption.” Gerrard adds that customers also benefit from a clearer playing field of Voice vendors, and can more readily discern between hardware manufacturers, system integrators and software solutions providers who all play in the Voice market.
Out of reach Gavin Clark, commercial manager at Synergy Logistics, reflects that, typically‚Voice‘ has historically been for the larger operators. “The costs involved in licensing and implementing the solutions always took Voice out of reach for the majority,” he said. “In recent years, the move towards Software as a Service (SaaS) business models has moved not only WMS but also Voice-directed solutions towards a monthly subscription, which has made the benefits of Voice available to a far wider audience and at a far more cost-effective price point.”
“
For Richard Adams, vice president of sales at Vocollect EMEA, one of the most striking developments for Voice-directed work is the use of Voice beyond traditional picking applications. “While some Voice customers migrate from paper to Voice across multiple workflows from the outset, others typically begin with Voice in the picking workflow,” he said. “Once they realise double-digit gains in productivity and accuracy in picking, they quickly discover the value of deploying Voice to other workflows for their hands-busy, eyes-busy workers. They soon find increased productivity and accuracy benefits, as well as efficiencies such as a 10 to 20 per cent reduction in warehouse vehicles, which lowers capital expenditures and ongoing maintenance.”
“
Voice picking continues to
provide the ‘quick win’ by producing a rapid ROI, but after that investment has been made users are increasingly looking for other areas in the operation that could also benefit from Voice to maximise their ROI.”
– David Stanhope, VoiteQ.
maximum benefit from existing investments in Voice and to broaden the scope of use of the technology. He states that Zetes sees market growth in two directions. “First, there is horizontal growth – expanding usage within the warehouse to different activities i.e. from picking to stock management and putaway applications,” he said. “Secondly there is vertical expansion across different industry sectors. So Voice implementations began with 3PLs and consumer goods industries and uptake is now broadening to new
sectors such as healthcare, pharma and within manufacturing operations.”
What has developed in the past few years is a much wider range of available integration methods to suit different sizes and types of warehouse operation and the integration preference of customers and WMS/ERP companies.”
David Stanhope, CEO at VoiteQ, comments thatVoice is increasingly being used for more than just picking; such as goods in, replenishment and inventory. “Although VoiteQ Voice-enabled all warehouse operations almost 13 years ago it only now seems to be being widely talked about taking Voice beyond picking,” he said. “Voice picking continues to provide the ‘quick win’ by producing a rapid ROI, but after that investment has been made users are increasingly looking for other areas in the operation that could also benefit from Voice to maximise their ROI. This has lead to the expansion of Voice ‘tasks’ being created to meet these requirements.”
– Richard Adams, Vocollect.
In the opinion of Steve Binder, senior director, sales & marketing at Zetes, there are two main current
developments/talking
points. First, he believes customers are looking to move away from proprietary systems and implement open systems. Secondly, Binder’s view is that customers want to get the
www.logisticsit.com
Demand for ‘plug and play’ Andreas Finken, director of topVOX US and managing director of topVOX UK, explains that the key issue for topVOX customers is the demand for a ‘plug and play’ system for the use of Voice in logistics. “The expenditure for integration into the existing IT structure should be as minimal as possible,” he said. “With our Voice suite topSpeech Lydia, we offer a custom-fit solution. Our standard interfaces allow a quick and easy connection to leading WMS systems. We have already mapped all current work processes related to intralogistics in our Voice system, so that no additional time- consuming adjustments are necessary. Thanks to the speaker-independent speech recogniser, employees can immediately work productively with topSpeech-Lydia without training.”
And, specifically with regard to the WMS space, what have been some of the key developments in recent times? According to Stephan Vennemann, business
development manager WMS at Vanderlande, one of these is Performance
Richard Adams, vice president of sales
December 2011
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
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