Listen Up Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM
, By KAREN M. KROLL
JobZone
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We all know the drill. An order comes in, and the picker has to wade through sheets of labels to know what to pick. It takes time, and he also has to report that it's complete. But there's another way. The worker gets the order through a headset. When he's finished, he says “done.”
And the best part is that there's nobody at the other end. The fact that the items have been picked is transmitted to a database.
What are we talking about? It's speech recognition, a technology that is starting to catch on with direct merchants.
One early adapter was Awana Clubs International, a nonprofit group that markets educational materials to church groups. It started using technology from Lucas Systems in 2004.
Awana has a large shipping job on its hands. It sends about 200,000 packages a year from its 60,000-sq.-ft. distribution center in Schaumburg, IL.
Its accuracy rate hovered around 90%, but it sometimes fell to 65% when temporary employees helped out during the holiday season. The group felt it could do better.
And it has. Thanks to speech recognition, Awana's productivity has jumped by 40%. And its accuracy has improved — there are only about 50 exceptions a year, says director of distribution Steve Hale.
How does it work?
In Awana's case, most orders arrive via the Web and are then funneled into order entry and a database. The Lucas system converts the data to speech, using a programmed vocabulary of 60 words such as “quantity” and “location.” These form the instructions given to the pickers.
Awana is so pleased that it now wants to use the technology for its receiving, replenishment and returns. “To me, it is just about unlimited as to what you can do with it,” Hale says.
These systems were once used mostly by large packaged goods brands and supermarket chains. But multichannel merchants are turning to them — in part because they are now affordable by mid-size operations. And experts say they're worth the investment.
For starters, firms that replace paper labels with speech often see double-digit jumps in productivity. “This is hands-free and eyes-free,” claims Tom Kerr, director of applied research with systems provider Vocollect.
And speech technology is more reliable than radio frequency scanning, adds Jeff Slevin, chief operating officer with Lucas Systems. Yes, the scanning devices are accurate, but they're also handheld — if users put them down, they may start again in the wrong spot.
But don't be confused by terminology. While often used interchangeably, “voice recognition” and “speech recognition” refer to two different systems, says Dan Ciarcia, principal consultant with CTG.
Voice recognition captures a voice and identifies the speaker — it works like an audio fingerprint. But speech recognition identifies the words spoken in order to complete a process.
Most systems used in warehouses are speaker-dependent. That is, the person records a list of words — usually 100 or less — and his speech is easily recognized.
In contrast, systems accessed by consumers tend to be speaker-independent. They've been built to work with a range of voices and accents, and aren't as precise — a request for flights to Boston may prompt a schedule for Austin.
Let's say you've decided to use a speech system in your facility. There are two types available for communicating with employees.
One features recorded or digitized voices. Someone records the words that will tell workers what task to do next, and the recording is stored as a digital audio file.
The other is text-to-speech. Software application interprets text provided by an order entry system and creates the spoken words.
Recorded voice instructions sound more natural, but most systems use text-to-speech because it is less expensive and more flexible. And workers can boost productivity by speeding up the recording.
The headsets are supported by mobile computing devices that pickers usually wear on a belt. They communicate via radio frequency with a host computer.
The application that converts text to voice instructions can reside within the mobile device or in the central computer. If the former, the information tends to be more quickly transmitted.
Most companies use one headset per worker. And the hardware? Companies can either connect to an existing computer or dedicate a server to the system.
ODW Logistics, a third-party logistics provider, purchased a specialized server for its full-pallet picking operation. Active since July 2006, it is now enabling a client to ship about 800 orders per day, according to Jon Petticrew, vice president of operations.
Yes, ODW could have used its existing server. But the new one provided scalability and flexibility, he says.
And Pettricrew wants to do more. The firm will next use the system to serve an online cosmetics retailer, and then an apparel client. “When we did programming and integration, we made sure that we weren't specific to one client or vertical,” he says.
