 The Solution – Voice technology for increased accuracy and productivity in the warehouse Hendersons selected Zetes, a leading pan-European company in the value-added solutions and services industry for Goods ID and People ID, as a partner to bring voice technology to the warehouse. A team of local Zetes specialists and international experts of the Zetes 3iVoice Competence Centre worked together with Hendersons’ project managers to model and implement the Zetes 3iVoice Solution according to their requirements. Philip Mehaffey, Hendersons’ Logistics Manager, comments: ‘We chose to work with Zetes because of their proven experience in the voice market. They were uniquely positioned to offer us global integrator experience with local support from their two offices in Ireland.’ The Zetes 3iVoice Solution, based on the proven Talkman platform and supporting Vocollect’s Voice Direct applications, links the WMS directly with the workforce. The system/user dialogue is established via Talkman T5 voice terminals, headsets and microphones allowing operators to verbally exchange stock information with the operating system in real-time. These wearable mobile computers allow workers to move about the warehouse and perform their picking tasks without having to carry paper lists. Traditional paper-based picking systems are fraught with difficulties for both the efficient management of the warehouse and safety of workers. Mistakes are often made as pickers select the wrong item and workers struggle to consult and update their pick lists whilst loading items safely onto pallets. Voice-directed systems successfully eliminate these challenges by relaying detailed stock item information to the worker directly from the WMS and from the worker back to the system. Hendersons realises instant return on investment The impact of voice has been dramatic as Alan Abraham, Hendersons’ Logistics System Manager, explains ‘The main goal of the voice implementation was to profit from increased accuracy and to streamline the process. In fact, we have reduced our reported error rate from 0.25% to just 0.01%. This equates to a saving of over £40.000 stg in four months from the reduced number of returns.” Warehouse production has also been improved by 5%. This increase has been largely due to the transformation of late picks. Late picks refers to a product which is not available at the moment the order picker passes its location. With the former paper-based picking system, there was no way for order pickers to plan for missing or delayed stock. Consequently, the worker had to return to that specific location at the end of his complete picking line to check if the missing product had been replenished. If not, the order had to be transferred to the next shift. This was a frustrating process for the workers and it involved additional administration. With the new ‘go back’ functionality, steered from within the WMS and communicated via the workers’ headsets, this problem is now resolved a simple and efficient way: the real-time communication between the WMS and workers triggers the action as soon as the item is replenished. Savings have also been made in training. New recruits to the distribution centre typically required 13 weeks to become competent order pickers. The voice system has driven this down to between four and six weeks, with workers attaining a good operative level after just fourteen days. The acceptance of the new system by existing workers was also positive and Hendersons attributes this to voice-profile training undertaken with each worker. Philip Mehaffey says: “It was very important that our workers would feel confident with the new system. Given the fact that we work with a diverse international team, representing many dialects and accents, we were afraid that some people’s performance - and consequently their motivation - could be affected using voice technology. Thanks to the customisable voice recognition, however, this was not an issue.’ Future roll-out of voice The deployment of voice technology in the ambient warehouse has undoubtedly exceeded Hendersons’ expectations. Its successful implementation has resulted in voice now being extended to picking processes of non-grocery products with future consideration for frozen goods. Philip Mehaffey concludes: ‘The application of the new WMS together with voice technology has made us look differently at how we organise things, resulting in almost paperless but highly efficient processes. As a result, our service to our customers is at its highest level ever. We now want to further leverage these advantages throughout the Group.’ | 
Hendersons case study
