VOICE
technology
Opinion
Voice picking – fast payback is not enough
By Gareth Giles Knopp, managing director, Voxware UK. I
n difficult economic times capital investments are closely scrutinised, and getting the green light often requires full payback in under a year. Those of us who serve the market for Voice-directed work
in the warehouse have long been comfortable in meeting aggressive targets for ROI, so thankfully we’ve seen our projects among the first to be approved as enterprises have begun once more to invest for growth and competitive advantage.
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But too often in evaluating voice technology, organisations put the emphasis solely
workplaces, where seasoned logistics executives are constantly dissatisfied with the status quo and continually looking for ways to improve. Best-in-class companies never rest; they are relentless in driving cost out of the operation while improving customer service. All of this adds up to one thing: change is a constant fact of life.
Voice picking systems need to be amenable to change because they operate on the front lines, optimising business processes where labour costs are greatest and the potential for errors is highest.”
on initial payback and fail to consider the longer-term consequences of the decision they make – an oversight that can have unpleasant results. This is beginning to change. Increasingly, Voice evaluations are looking beyond Year 1, and tough questions about downstream costs are being asked.
We at Voxware regard this trend as a positive and welcome development. It is yet another indication that Voice technology has entered the mainstream, and should be managed just like all other long-term technology investments.
Why consider long-term cost? In some areas such as extended hardware warranties, tomorrow’s costs can be negotiated and thus controlled up front through multi-year contract vehicles. But some long-term costs can be challenging to assess, because nobody knows what the future holds. Warehouses are dynamic
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MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT July 2011
www.logisticsit.com
Enterprises that make the smartest buying decisions always acknowledge the reality of change and plan for it in advance. And even though you can’t know exactly what changes will be needed to your operation in the future,
you can implement a software architecture that minimises the cost when it happens. This kind of planning adds to competitive advantage.
Impact of an inflexible Voice system
Voice picking systems need to be amenable to change because they operate on the front lines, optimising business processes where labour costs are greatest and the potential for errors is highest. This is the very area where
Configurable solutions dramatically reduce the cost of change because they eliminate coding.
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