Voice and WMS Special technology report
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.” Binder continued: “Customers investing in Voice today are doing so during a difficult economic environment in which any capital expenditure is carefully scrutinised. It is now taken for granted that Voice delivers a benefit and users want to recoup their investments quickly, ensuring operational processes are automated in the best way possible to benefit the business.”
the industry early and started developing their solutions before there was significant market demand. “VoiteQ has always kept an eye on industry changes and relishes the challenge to create new solutions to stay ‘ahead of the game’,” he remarked.
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. “The industry has matured since 1999 when the first Voice systems operated around batch processes,” he said. “Now customers want real-time, scalable systems based on open systems architectures that are able to support multiple hardware configurations (i.e. combining Voice-only terminals with HHTs or vehicle mounted computers) from different, or mixed, hardware manufacturers.”
Secondly, Binder’s view is that customers want to get the maximum benefit from existing investments in Voice and to broaden the scope of use of the technology. He states that Zetes sees market growth is 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
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
“
And, specifically with regard to the WMS space, what have been some of the key developments in recent times? According to Stephan Vennemann, business
David Stanhope, CEO 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.
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.”
In addition, Finken believes the issues of workplace safety and ergonomics top the list. “The necessary hardware equipment for Voice picking must optimally support the employees and not hinder them at work,” he said. “Here, topVOX scores with the latest Bluetooth headset that requires no cable connection to the Voice client. We have placed a lot of emphasis on comfort for the wearer and long battery life so that employees can best perform their tasks.”
development manager WMS at Vanderlande, one of these is Performance Management. “We see developments focusing on business process optimisation,” he said. “Warehouses and distribution centres (DCs) face continuous changes, such as changes in order patterns, seasonality, product range, and various peaks (peak days, peak weeks, peak months). As business changes over time, the logistics system needs to support these changes in the best possible way. Is capacity still sufficient? What are the bottle necks? Are the processes still adequate? In an automated DC, these challenges provide an opportunity to implement highly intelligent material
handling systems, based on a thorough understanding of the supply chain and DC processes. The result: The DC is becoming a ‘logistics plant’, consisting of machinery, labour, processes, input and output. All these elements need to be optimised to be successful. It requires a significant level of knowledge of the processes, the technology and the people involved.”
Vennemann maintains that Process Engineering can be the key to logistics process improvement. “Process Engineering focuses on the design, operation, control and optimisation of processes, through the aid of systemic, computer based methods,” he said. “Key steps are monitoring, data collection and information analysis. Computer systems can help to monitor daily processes by giving a direct overview of daily business
July 2011
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT 13
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