Finding ROI When Adding Voice Picking Systems

Years of Feedback From the Field Reveals…

For the last several years, Voice Picking activities in the warehouse have been moving away from full process and technology replacement, toward a strategic augmentation of a current workflow process to leverage inventories of existing mobile devices and existing terminal emulation interfaces. Reports from the field in sticking to existing infrastructure in lieu of undergoing a technology replacement has shown mixed results. Although the marketing dogma of relying on standardized mobiles has been highly touted, have enterprises really seen the expected ROI? If so, what has the feedback called out as the key to a successful implementation?

After years of field research, the findings are quite interesting. ROI for the implementation of Voice Picking tools has been successful enough to migrate Voice to shipping and receiving, cycle counting and replenishment. However, the high productivity and accuracy increases are NOT a result of the addition of Voice alone. The fine-tuning of the workflow, the process that is used to manage the workers on the mobile devices, has to be considered a major contributor to the ROI when implementing voice.

For example, a major US CPG firm, prior to implementing Voice Picking, took baseline productivity and accuracy measurements. After the completion of a series of process changes, the addition of a pay-per-productivity model, the introduction of Voice and various additional changes in warehouse layout, the firm took productivity and accuracy measurements once again and realized a 23% productivity gain. Management was overjoyed and reported that Voice was solely responsible for the gain. However, subsequent engineering audits uncovered that pay-per-productivity and process changes unrelated to Voice were significant contributors to the efficiency gains. The gain from adding Voice to the process was found to deliver an increase in productivity (by their definition) in the high single digits.

The bottom line is that warehouse managers should not rely on anecdotal evidence when investigating the implementation of Voice because the underlying efficiency gains are due numerous factors,Voice being one of the components. In order to determine a clear picture of the effect of Voice systems in the warehouse, first a clear definition of productivity and accuracy must be made. These metrics are unique per implementation. If the plan is to leverage an existing process, that process MUST be streamlined and the warehouse staged for maximum efficiency as the project unfolds. Where Voice should be used in the system becomes far more clear once the initial cleanup is done.