At a glance
aberon VOICE PICKING is an alternative picking method that is mostly used to pick orders having content in cartons or pieces. In special cases, the voice technology may be applied to the receiving function, picking locations replenishment and inventory counting.
The voice picking solution consists of a PDA equipped with a headset (earphones & microphone) and the software for managing picking via voice interaction.
The advantage of the Voice Picking solution compared to the classic RF picking is that the operator has both his hands free, which leads to increased picking productivity.
Especially in a deep freezing environment, where users wear gloves, using wireless terminals incommodes the picking process. In this case, the use of Voice Picking is an alternative solution with competitive advantages.
After years of research, we, in VELTIONoptimum, have implemented an innovative VOICE PICKING solution. This solution based on leading edge technology standards is fully integrated into aberon WMS's main body. Our VOICE PICKING solution does not require an Interface with the aberon WMS or a separate server and constitutes a physical extension of the aberon Warehouse Management system developed by VELTIONoptimum.
aberon VOICE PICKING is an expandable application developed in .net C# which can run in any PDA with MOBILE WINDOWS operating system.
The main advantages of aberon VOICE PICKING compared to other competitive voice picking systems, are:
- The natural voice quality(100% natural voice) that does NOT create a sense of distress and discontent to the user
- No system training by the user is required (100% speaker independent)
- The low acquisition cost and the investment protection
- The open architecture of the application that allows its functioning both in voice PDA and in normal RF terminals
- Its capability to be perfectly adapted to the particular requirements of the client
Voice PDAs
Contrary to other competitive systems, aberon VOICE PICKING can function in any industrial-type PDA, using a MOBILE WINDOWS operating system. In this way, the client's investment is protected, since the same PDA can serve both the traditional RF application and the VOICE PICKING application.
If the picking process requires scanning of the barcode, such as, for example, in cases of lot recognition or variable weight capture or serial number reading, then it can be connected to a PDA bluetooth barcode scanner.
aberon VOICE PICKING system consists of two basic technologies seamlessly linked to each other:
TTS (Text-To- Speech): This technology transforms the tasks sent from WMS to PDA as a character sequence into an audio message. In this way, if, for example, the task "go to location A12-3" is sent to PDA, it is transformed, via the TTL technology, into an audio message that the operator listens to in his earphones.
VR (Voice Recognition): This technology transforms the operator's voice messages into characters sequences, that are transferred and decodified in the Warehouse Management system.
Natural Voice
aberon VOICE PICKING offers 100% natural voice. It is difficult to recognize that the voice you hear from PDA comes from an electronic TTL voice composition engine. The majority of users testing aberon VOICE PICKING think that the voice they hear is 100% natural human voice. The voice naturalness inclines pleasantly the operator to accept and work productively with the system. Imagine working for eight hours while listening to a weird electronically distorted voice. The result is low productivity, tiredness, discontent, aversion and abandonment of the solution.
Speaker Independant
There are two Voice Recognition technologies on the market:
Speaker Dependant: Τhis is the older technology, where a profile is required to built for each user. Before using the system, each operator must train the system, by pronouncing several times each word to be used in the application's glossary.
Speaker Independent: This is the new contemporary technology, where the recognition of the operator's speech is made without any need of system training.
The aberon VOICE PICKING system is based on the Speaker Independent technology, as well as all the other similar modern voice recognition applications used by banking and insurance customer servicing systems. Imagine if, in order to execute by phone a banking transaction with a banking voice recognition application, you had to previously train the system to recognise your voice!
aberon VOICE PICKING allows recognition of the voice orders without previous parametrization and training of the system by the operator. Moreover, one of the aberon VOICE PICKING system's advantages is its capacity to recognise numbers direct sequence. This system feature is necessary for recognizing voice tasks regarding input of a variable weight or serial number. Thus, for example, for the variable weight 12.5Kgr, the operator offers the digits as one word "onetwopointfive" without pause between the digits. The aberon VOICE PICKING system decodes successfully the audio message into its separate digits and transfers it to WMS.
Productivity
The advantages of the VOICE PICKING systems compared to RF picking:
- Productivity increase from 5% to 20% depending on the nature of the items and the warehouse layout.
- Decrease in the operators' training time compared to the use of RF
- Decrease of picking errors compared to picking list picking and marginal decrease of picking errors compared to RF terminals picking
Put-To-Voice
It is a variation of the VOICE PICKING solution, where order picking is executed in two phases:
Group picking: In this phase, orders are grouped at picking wave level. Picking of the collective wave orders is performed either via the traditional RF procedure or via the VOICE PICKING application.
According to this method a collective order is picking for a orders wave. The collective group order is then split into the individual client orders. Each client is linked to a Physical Location. This Location may be a pallet, a shelf, a basket etc. Such point may be permanent or dynamically allocated for each client. The operator undertakes the task to divide the collective order to each individual customers order. The operator scans the item reference and the system guides by voice the operator about to which point (of client or order) and how many pieces of the total quantity it will place. The operator, having both his hands free, performs quickly and effectively the collective order's split into the individual client orders. At the same time, the error possibility is checked, since, if a shortage or surplus occurs in the last order during the collective order's split, then there is a potential error that has to be restored via a counter-check process.