UK struggling to find voice?
October 1st 2007

The benefits of voice picking are well known, yet UK retailers seem keener on technologies with lower upfront costs. James Hannay, md of Zetes UK, says voice delivers productivity gains and paves the path for RFID implementation

In our experience, UK companies are quick to adopt new technologies, but unusually, this trend hasn't been seen in the adoption of voice technologies within major retail multiples or at their distribution centres. Over 5 years ago, Zetes began implementing voice recognition solutions for continental Europe's top tier retailers.

Yet in the UK, many of the big UK retailers we work with have opted for wearable hands-free solutions, which, from an initial cost perspective are slightly cheaper than dedicated voice solutions. However, factor in productivity increases, and the benefits of voice can far outweigh alternatives such as barcode scanning.

This can be seen from the immediate impact seen by Henderson, the owners of the Spar convenience stores, when they implemented voice to improve the picking of ambient goods as part of a WMS overhaul. In fact voice has been so successful they are extending the implementation to picking of non grocery goods and frozen foods.

Henderson's main goal was to profit from increased accuracy and streamlined processes. The results were very impressive. They reduced reported error rates from 0.25% to just 0.01%, which represented a saving of over £40,000 in just four months from the reduced number of ambient returns to the warehouse. In addition, warehouse production has been improved by 5%, an increase largely due to the transformation of late picks, (products which are not available at the precise time a picker passes its warehouse location).

Now, the "go back" functionality, which is steered from within the WMS and communicated via workers' headsets, has resolved the problem very simply - a realtime communication between the WMS and the worker triggers the action immediately as the item is replenished.

Henderson has also seen savings in training. New recruits to the distribution centre previously needed 13 weeks to become competent stock pickers, but this has been more than halved, to an average of 5 weeks, with workers actually achieving a good operative level after just 14 days in the job.

So if results like that can be achieved, why has the UK been slower than usual on the uptake of voice technology? We believe a contributing factor may be due to a lack of suppliers with the required capability to either advocate the benefits of voice or to offer the ongoing support necessary to maintain these solutions. The sector has previously been occupied by a number of smaller, independent companies "pushing" voice, but they didn't have the resources or gravitas required to convince the retailers to invest.

In addition to this, few suppliers appear to have made a compelling enough argument to their third party logistics providers (3PL) distribution partners to make such an investment at their DCs.

With so many retailers now using managed services, they are less likely to benefit directly from the way their 3PL provider operates its warehouse management, (and nor are they particularly bothered) provided they meet the terms and conditions agreed in the SLA.

Another reason for the apparent slow uptake of voice recognition technology in the UK may be due to the types of WMS being used by the major retailers. Unlike the rest of Europe, the UK is strongly influenced by major US software specialists, who have little market penetration within the rest of Europe. In many cases, these vendors manage their software development out of the US and we believe this may be hindering the adoption of voice. This is because voice is not a "plug and go system" and never will be. It requires a high degree of specialisation and integration into existing systems. In other European countries – Germany for example – there is a much higher concentration of local specialist software providers offering WMS with built-in voice integration capabilities. For UK companies, it is not always straightforward to integrate voice into an existing WMS if the development work is conducted in the US and this results in a much tougher and costlier process. To help alleviate this problem, Zetes has invested in a flexible interfacing technology which makes the integration from WMS to voice applications very affordable and flexible, and provides the ability to hook up to any protocol, removing the problems involved with connecting to different logistics packages.

For those looking to achieve the ultimate in real-time efficiency, voice is also a highly complementary partner to RFID. This is because when combining voice with RFID many objectives are achieved in addition to increased productivity and accuracy. These include real-time communications with the host WMS or ERP system and full user interaction with information confirmation, exception reporting, situational interpretation and reaction. Another benefit is the ability to simultaneously communicate and handle product with hand and eyes free operations. Thus where RFID is a planned for strategy, voice solutions can pay dividends in preparation for future RFID deployments. Moreover, RFID communications look very similar in phasing to voice solutions. Companies that have already implemented voice or who plan to are in a very good position to address the need for RFID and justify a business case.

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