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When a leading retail fulfillment firm with over 250 retail stores wanted to increase warehouse productivity by replacing its paper picking process, it leap-frogged radio frequency (RF) technology and chose to implement a voice-directed picking, which turned out to be a wise choice.
Working with the Numina Group to select and implement a picking automation system, it has increased order productivity by 35% and order accuracy to 99.9%.
Labor-Intensive Manual Picking a Drain on Profitability
Store sales represented 90% of the DC’s order fulfillment volume with e-commerce sales accounting for the remaining volume.
Approximately 63 retail store orders are picked each day. Stores receive 35 to 40 totes with the larger stores getting up to 175 totes.
Despite the high SKU count and high volume of items shipped daily, the company’s fulfillment operation was primarily a manual, paper-based picking process that required picking and replenishment from random forward high-density pick shelf locations.
Blog: Order Picking Automation Options to Resolve Warehouse Labor Challenges
Orders were picked by paper and workers used price label sheets to direct the picking and apply price labels across the four main pick zones. Pickers followed paper instructions to pick discrete orders and price label each item for a single store in each zone.
Picks per store would range from 30 to 300 items into a series of totes. At pick completion, the totes were placed onto a conveyor that transported and sorted the totes to the individual store’s staging and shipping area.
Warehouse Automation Design Study Uncovers Optimal Solution
Numina Group first performed a process design study to determine the best investment and whether voice picking was the best means to increase the productivity in the order fulfillment operation.
During the design study, Numina’s engineers collaborated with the company’s logistics executives and operation’s team. to review its current picking and store delivery processes and define and flowchart leaner processes to streamline and improve the picking operation.
The team reviewed several warehouse technologies, but it was quickly apparent that voice had the fastest ROI.
Blog: The ROI of Voice Picking
A multi-modal voice picking system that combined voice commands with barcode scanning to direct and validate the order fulfillment pick-and-pack fulfillment operation was the technology choice.
The study showed that pick-by-voice technology
could provide a one-year ROI by replacing the paper based operation. At the end of the study, Numina Group was hired to implement its RDS™ Warehouse Execution and Control System and RDS Victory Voice™ Suite. RDS is integrated to exchange real-time information with the company’s WMS – JDA Merchandise Management solution.
A major advantage of Numina Group’s RDS Warehouse Execution and Control System is that the RDS Victory Voice picking module is an integral component of the RDS platform.
It can be deployed either as a voice application for warehouse picking, replenishment, and inspection applications or it can be combined with other warehouse automation technologies such as automated conveyors, warehouse robots, packing automation and print-and-apply labeling for a complete warehouse order fulfillment automation solution.
RDS Victory Voice offers configurable functionality that extends beyond traditional systems. For example, at this retail distribution center, it added wave pick optimization and batch picking in addition to the store item price label printing to the existing WMS. RDS™ Voice manages the batch cart pick process, and balances order picking across the pick zones.
Another key advantage of RDS Voice is its speaker-independent, zero voice training technology. It requires no operator voice training regardless of accents or languages. Operators are productive in minutes so even temporary workers can be trained in under 15 minutes.
RDS Victory Voice permits more flexibility in cross-training workers and interleaving work tasks, leading to better labor utilization in picking, replenishment, and cycle counting, all prime voice directed processes.
Voice-Directed Pick Process
In considering voice-picking solution, the client had three questions:
All three concerns were readily alleviated due to the advantages of the RDS Linux-based voice solution.
With regard to the ability to connect to the customer’s host systems, RDS™ is a top-tier WES-WCS platform with thousands of installations that can bolt on to virtually any existing ERP or WMS. An RDS™ pre-developed interface was used to connect to the JDA WMS on the IBM I-Series AS-400 platform.
The third question of a one-year ROI was answered after the conclusion of the successful pilot.
Pilot Project Resolves Questions and Exceeds Performance Expectations
Since the company’s workforce with no experience used voice picking technology, the team had doubts about the estimated ROI and the workers’ adoption of a pick-by-voice system.
A pilot was initially conducted with 20 pickers. After the initial success, the trial was expanded to 40 pickers. The goal, to raise average picks by 30% per hour, from 195 lines to 257 lines, was soon exceeded.
“We had to prove to ourselves that we could get a 30% productivity gain during the pilot before we added deployed it to our entire force of 100 workers,” stated the operations manager. “This goal was achieved, and we also identified several additional enhancements that would provide even higher productivity when we added the entire workforce.”
During the pilot, a 20% productivity increase occurred in the first day due to the speaker-independent voice technology that requires zero operator voice training. Within just a few weeks, the workforce had exceeded 30% and then 35%, with the highest performing workers achieving a 60% productivity increase.
Order Picking Accuracy Increases to 99.9%
Picking accuracy across the team averaged 99.9%. Voice combined with hands-free scanning accounts for 5 to 10% added productivity with a typical boost in accuracy of .5% compared to voice-only picking applications.
Video: 99.9% Order Picking Accuracy with RDS Victory Voice
RDS Labor Tracking Supports an Employee Incentive Program
RDS™ Voice includes labor management and reporting functionality that can be used to further boost workforce performance. It adds operator accountability through web-based labor management tools that record the accuracy and the performance of each of the approximately 100 operators.
Management is able to view operational productivity from any PC, tablet, or portable device, and can see real-time production statistics for any worker. Views and reports provide feedback of workers that display individual and team hourly and daily production results. This real time reporting capability is a useful tool to recognize and reward workers that exceed their goals.
Blog: Labor Tracking & Performance Metrics of Voice Picking
“Once we started tracking the labor productivity measurements, we saw that some of our associates were just really excelling at it,” said the company’s operation manager.
“This prompted us to put in an incentive policy for our workers. If they maintain at least a 99.6% accuracy level and reach at least a 30% higher than the designated productivity standards, they qualify as a Voice Professional (VP) and earn recognition within the picking team and a wage increase as part of our bonus plan.”
Learn More
The Numina Group is a top-tier designer and integrator of warehouse automation solutions, offering decades of experience in warehouse design, warehouse software, material handling equipment, systems integration, and implementation services for mid-to-large-sized enterprises.
Our team has designed and successfully implemented over 1,000 warehouse automation projects in diverse warehouse environments throughout North America.
Contact us to schedule a complimentary on-site warehouse assessment today.
The Numina Group
10331 Werch Drive
Woodridge, IL 60517
630-343-2600
How the Right Warehouse Automation Decisions Can Solve Your Labor Woes As the economy roars
The Numina Group
10331 Werch Drive
Woodridge, IL 60517
630-343-2600