Khushi: Power your Warehouse by Voice based picking
You are sitting in your office and discussing an important
project. You suddenly get a birthday reminder for someone important in your
life. Since you didn’t remember the birthday, you haven’t sent any gifts. What
do you do?………. You open a shopping app, pick same-day delivery, and voila! The
app helps you order a gift that will delight your loved ones. But, what took
you a few clicks to finish is, in fact, the result of heaps of teams working in
tandem around the year. The most important part of this entire chain is the
“Warehouse” which stores these “gifts”. Warehouses are the hidden fulcrum of
supply chain management, without their smooth functioning, the entire supply
chain would collapse. There’s a lot to proper warehouse management than what
meets the eye. From taking care of time-critical packages and dealing with
inaccurate inventory to employing strategies to minimize labor costs – the
world of warehousing is as tricky as a “dusra” cricket delivery indeed!
Out of all the activities in a warehouse namely in-warding
of goods, storage, order picking, and dispatch, order picking forms the
backbone of the entire operations. Picking up the correct order is critical as
it directly affects supply chain productivity. Collecting articles for every
order placed by the customer, as per the right quantity, while making sure it’s
the exact product as was ordered- for millions of customers, every single time
– is a Herculean task indeed!
To make this task easier and increase efficiency, it is
recommended to use Voice-directed warehousing, or Pick-by-Voice as many call it. It comes to warehousing
operations as an improvement upon the older version of HHT based scanning
system for picking and is a new opportunity to win the upper hand in the
aggressive supply-chain market.
Voice Picking Software- What’s In the Voice and How Does It
Function?
Pick-By-Voice is a speech recognition and voice direction software
installed in a small, wearable device. Here’s how it works:
1. Warehouse employees carry the voice unit with them
2. They receive verbal prompts from the mobile unit
3. They are directed to predetermined locations in the
warehouse as per the algorithm
4. They read confirmation codes (check digits) of the
products and speak predefined commands into the mic of the headset
5. The speech recognition module verifies the worker’s
response and reverts with the picking quantity
6. After confirming the quantity picked, the worker collects
the product and moves on to the next location
The entire system is designed to optimize the pick path of
the operator thus improving the overall efficiency of the system
Pick-by-Voice Versus Traditional Warehouse Management
Methods- What Makes the Former Special?
For one, a system that is entirely centered around speaking
and listening gives your employees freedom from holding anything other than the
product that they’re supposed to be handling. There are no instruction sheets,
code scanners, devices, or checklists that they may need to put down and pick
up before and after dealing with a product.
This subsequently simplifies employee functionality. In
fact, this causes a 35% to 85% increase in productivity and accuracy respectively.
Then, there is a matter of labor safety. With fewer
obstacles in the way to divert the attention of your operator, the potential of
any harm to the product or injury to the personnel reduces as well. Even if
they are picking an exceptionally heavy object or handling a fragile item, the
chances of hurting themselves or vandalizing the product go down significantly.
Ultimately, this system eliminates any paperwork
requirement. And, voice picking training is not only quick but also
hassle-free. Plus, since it makes the operator’s job a tad bit smoother and
easier, it gradually leads to a more satisfied and hence dedicated operator.
But, Why Would You Jump on this Bandwagon at All?
Here are the problems voice picking solves for you:
1. Improves inventory accuracy, picking accuracy, and
employee productivity
2. Increases operator-safety
3. Reduces training time for operators
4. Eliminates paperwork, and hence redundancy
5. Leads to a better customer experience
The system converts speech to data with advanced speech
recognition software. This software learns what each word sounds like –
regardless of language or dialect, so the operator of any region irrespective
of their mother tongue, can adjust as easily as those whose first language is
English or Hindi. Today, Voice Technology is available in Indian regional
languages as well. In other words, this system can work anywhere around the
world without any difficulty.
The global reach for this tech is expected to touch a
staggering USD 2.5 billion by the end of 2018 from its previous value of USD
900 million in 2017. It’s not just flexible but also offers a stellar increase
in productivity and efficiency for warehouses. And, the market is expected to
adopt voice picking systems in the upcoming years readily. With the scale of
warehousing picking in India, voice is expected to be the next technology that
will hit a tipping point. We suggest you jump on this ship while the good seats
are still available.
For More Information:
Voice Picking Technology in Warehouse
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