Warehouse & DC Technology: Best practices in voice recognition

Bob Trebilcock, Editor-at-Large for Modern Materials Handling -- Logistics Management, 1/1/2008 10:18:00 AM

In just five years, voice recognition technology has moved from an emerging technology used by early adopters to a common practice delivering a real return on investment, especially in picking operations.

That’s the conclusion of a new survey of warehouse professionals and Modern Materials Handling readers by ARC Advisory Group. “I went into the survey with a belief that speech recognition is now a mature technology in the warehouse,” says Steve Banker, ARC’s service director for supply chain management. “What I found was that five years ago, if a warehouse was choosing between voice and pick-to-light technology for each picking, the choice was usually pick-to-light. Today, the choice is more often than not speech recognition.”

The survey highlighted several trends about the way voice recognition is being adopted.

Voice is no longer just for the big guys: While 60 percent of the respondents using voice had revenues of over $1 billion a year, 18 percent had revenues of between $250 and $1 billion, and 25 percent had revenues below $250, million, including several respondents with under $100 million in annual revenues.

Voice is being used across verticals: The grocery industry, representing 14 percent of respondents, was one of the first to adopt voice. However, the top three industries using voice in Banker’s survey were retail, food and beverage distribution and wholesale distribution, each representing nearly 22 percent of the respondents.

Use is likely to grow: 56 percent of all respondents were exploring voice in the warehouse, and 13 percent said they were strongly exploring the adoption of voice technology.

Picking predominates: Where is voice most frequently being used? “The sweet spot is picking,” says Banker. In fact, 100 percent of the respondents using voice were using it in picking operations. By contrast, only 14.8 percent were using it in putaway, followed by value-added services and receiving (11.1 percent each), cycle counting (3.7 percent) and truck loading (3.7 percent).

Voice is delivering tangible ROI: Nearly 60 percent of respondents saw productivity gains greater than 8 percent in their picking operations when they adopted voice, while another 26 percent saw productivity gains of between 4 percent and 8 percent.

Banker’s conclusion: “The best way to adopt voice in the warehouse is to begin by focusing on picking, then over time look to expand the use of voice to other tasks.”