Voice picking is one of those revolutionary technologies which is changing the way logistics transportation functions from the employee’s perspective. Most of the times when there is an improvement in the business processes with the help of TMS solutions, it is to become more efficient. We often forget the role of the human resources involved in this quest which can contribute to a greater extent in making the supply chain more productive given that they have equally capable resources. TMS solutions are used at multiple layers in the supply chain and technologies like voice picking make their adoption more feasible for the employees working at different levels of supply chain.

Voice picking technology solutions can be as simple as a virtual chat system which works as a support for the customers or as complex as a yard navigation system. But the most advantageous use of voice picking services can be seen in warehouse management operations. Voice picking practically improves the supply chain operations inside the warehouse at many levels thereby increasing the employee productivity by a large margin. This is essentially a very big feat achieved by any TMS solution provider as it also addresses the workforce crunch in logistics industry effectively.

Financial benefits of using Voice picking in Warehouse management

The enhancement in accuracy and efficiency provided by hands-free technology such as voice picking service is irreplaceable in the warehouse environment. The floor staff has to cater the freight containers for long shifts which mean that the concentration span, no matter how long it is, practically gets distorted at many occasions. These occasions can either be checking the entries in the sheet or picking a cargo box for shifting, but it ends up disrupting the normal concentration of the floor staff. Having a voice command as a background support means that the staff doesn’t need to break the attention span in order to check the entries and picking tasks. This greatly reduces the human error which can otherwise disrupt the operations and improves the quality of the service at the warehouse.

The other major benefits which add value to the financial returns of voice picking services is the reduction in the supplies for carrying out the ground tasks across the floor in the warehouses. This also contributes to making the complete warehouse management “Green” in terms of usage of lesser resources. With less paperwork and more alert workforce completing the stacking tasks faster, the services are able to return a payback of invested cost in an average time period of a year in general.

TMS solutions are using voice picking services to improve efficiency

Improved staffing and increased efficiency of labor

Increased efficiency and improved staffing help the companies to cater to higher work order volumes without investing in the expansion of the inventory size or size of the workforce. This works in favor of the SMBs who wants to scale up and has the potential to capture more business but the only hurdle is cost intensive tasks of sizing up the inventory and workforce. The productivity enhancements achieved in the respective tasks of RF scanning can be as high as 35% with the help of voice picking enabled hands-free operations. The same goes true for the paper-based operations too.  

RF scanning can be as high as 35% with the help of voice picking enabled hands-free operations.
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The overall effect on the picker efficiency which is measured in the lines traveled by the picker is encouraging with reduced order cycle time.

Optimized inventory

With a faster completion of the order cycle, the inventory hold cost reduces greatly. This helps the warehouse to get more vacant inventory space for the new orders as well as save on the labor cost incurred on maintaining the stacked up inventory. With interleaved or standalone cycle-counting by voice picking, the validations for checking actual inventory levels are more frequents. This gives an edge to the warehouse to optimize the inventory management in the peak seasons where the inflow and outflow of the orders are volatile. This also updates the real time location of the orders to prevent the backtracking and re-lifts which optimize the lift usage also.   

Higher operational accuracy

The errors of “Out-of-stock” order, damaged order, wrong shipping, items not labeled correctly, delayed delivery or quantity mismatch ends up burdening the complete shipping cycle with the extra shipping cost on return requests. With the help of hands-free voice picking enabled picking processes the order error rate can be reduced to 50-90%. This helps in saving the costs incurred in re-delivery, re-picks, administration resources invested and lost sales. This helps us in understanding why the shippers are gearing up to achieve 100% accuracy to get the shipping right at the first time always. With the assured increase in accuracy in the operations, the warehouse can reduce the auditing levels of the Quality Assurance (QA). This helps the warehouses to reassigned this extra workforce from QA to the other tasks of the warehouse.

With the help of hands-free voice picking enabled picking processes the order error rate can be reduced to…
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With the above benefits, voice picking services in coordination with hands-free picking and other warehouse management solutions can achieve around 10-35% higher efficiency for paper-based operations. With similar positive effects on the other aspects of warehouse management, the voice picking services are adding tremendous value in the transport management solutions for the industry. Logistics business owners and warehouse owners are also acknowledging these benefits and are gearing up for more advanced forms of voice picking technology which starts from voice chat support system. Dreamorbit is catering to similar requests from the major and middle-level logistics companies and is also helping the logistics solutions service providers in the development of voice picking solutions development. To know more about the similar exciting TMS solutions provided by Dreamorbit, get in touch for a quick discussion.

About DreamOrbit:

DreamOrbit is a Logistics and Supply Chain Technology Development company. We have been creating meaningful and reliable software products for the industry which is “Always on the go” for the past half decade. We are highly motivated team aimed at innovation. Our philosophy is to “keep challenging the potential within”.  With the support of our happy customers and dedicated team, we strive to provide best possible solutions to industry problems. Visit our website to know more about DreamOrbit.