Voice picking in warehouses work in a similar fashion as RF devices. Instead of picking tasks displayed on an RF screen, warehouse operators listen to task information on their headsets through a voice systems connected to WMS through a Wi-Fi network. Voice picking also allows task confirmation through spoken commands. Voice picking has numerous advantages in a warehouse such as:
Voice Picking makes the data entry operation hands free. You do not need to hold an RF device or scan a barcode to confirm a pick task thereby leaving both hands free for physical movement of goods. This significantly boosts operator productivity.
Picking by voice improves accuracy and as I indicated in a previous post, importance of accuracy can not be underemined
Voice Picking is particularly suitable for environments where punching data on RF devices is not feasible such as freezer section for storing perishables. In such an environment you can imagine the plight of the warehouse operators with gloves fumbling and punching data on keyboard
Does it make sense to use voice picking in the entire warehouse? Possibly not. Voice picking may not make sense for warehouse area with low volume or pallet picks which can be done equally effectively using traditional RF devices.Voice picking is also most effective for repetitive tasks. If the warehouse operators perform a large number of different transactions, voice picking may not be very effective. A careful cost-benefit analysis is needed to determine what areas of the warehouse can benefit from voice picking.
If you wish to enable Voice-picking, Oracle WMS has capabilities to
interface with any external voice picking system such as VoCollect.
It also gives you the flexibility to have voice picking enabled for certain areas or operations of the warehouse e.g. use voice picking for high volume unit picks and RF pick for pallet picks, putaway, receipt and inspection transactions.
The approach needed to interface with a voice picking system is similar to the interface with any other material
handling equipment. The interface with voice picking can be initiated
at the time of pick release. Its possible to define a business event at
pick release for certain areas of the warehouse to compile the task
information and interface it to a voice picking systems. Subsequently
voice picking system dispatches the tasks and sends a confirmation back
to WMS.
