Today, mobility in supply chain execution is essential to efficient operation and its fingerprint is everywhere. Tour any modern warehouse ranging in size from 10K to 10M square feet and you’ll see mobile devices in use all over the warehouse. Fork-lifts use mobile devices for bulk moves, cross-docking and non-conveyor order picking. Operators with carts and totes move about the warehouse picking orders by mobile systems. Workers with wearable systems and headsets, wired and Bluetooth, are using voice technology (voice picking) in every imaginable configuration. Having a strong mobile infrastructure is critical for service and maintenance activities as well as asset tracking and of course standard inventory control functions like cycle counts and inventory audits. So, with mobile everywhere is there anything really new?

Mobile devices continue to get more powerful in speed and in total user memory. In addition, device manufacturers like Intermec are integrating peripherals that can be used simultaneously by client software applications. The age of multimodal mobile has arrived! The productivity gains associated with multimodal mobile systems that allow seamless use of multiple database systems, RFID, GPS, VoIP, digital imaging, voice technology (for voice recognition for security and speech recognition for the translation of spoken voice to readable text), and barcode scanning are as strong as those realized moving from paper to terminals.

Consider an upgrade to multimodal mobile technology to help you find additional cost reductions throughout the warehouse with an ROI that is measured in just months. In most cases switching to multimodal mobile from single task based systems doesn’t require an infrastructure change; it’s just a better way to use the mobile equipment in which you already have a significant investment.

When industrial computing equipment became available, distributors leveraged the insatiable consumer demand for imported goods and realized quick return on investment, ROI, when replacing paper-driven methods with computerized inventory control. By automating the warehouse, managers could reduce labor costs while keeping pace in productivity. As with any change in technology, complexities from process redesign to solution migration were exacerbated by the lack of trained personnel. Enter the Supply Chain Execution Consultant.

The fact is that with any move from one technology to another within supply chain activities, there are always issues to be confronted that are solely based on the case at hand. The Consultant's role can be as simple as identifying the roadblocks by conducting a technology survey to managing the project lifecycle of a complete warehouse management system. Customers do not stop placing orders just because the warehouse needs a technology makeover. The Consultant takes into consideration whether the product has a shelf-life constraint or if it's seasonal. In addition, the Consultant notes the available staging area, the number of resources available, the quantities moved, transportation issues, communication issues, and other such details for each warehousing task when designing technology migration plans.

When selecting a Consultant, be sure to interview the individual as you would any of your key, high-level employees. Most Consultants are willing to take an initial phone interview and many are willing to visit gratis when the opportunity is a fit. Additionally, if the Consultant is an employee of a consulting firm, review the financials of the private firm through Dunn & Bradstreet or Hoovers, and the public firm through financial investor statements, to ensure the financial stability of the firm. Be sure that when a technology selection is the goal, the Consultant is able to be neutral as to the package or product that is selected. Then, once you've selected your consulting partner, trust their advice, but don't trust it blindly. Stay abreast of the decisions and to the progress by requesting weekly or bi-weekly status reports to include action items and outstanding issues.

Consultants are truly a warehouse manager's business partner. Typically the Consultant is an excellent communicator that is able to take an overview of an operation and deliver the desired solutions to such problems as inventory shrinkage, throughput speed, individual resource productivity, training, staffing and more by helping to implement process and technology enhancements with minor if any disruption to supply chain activities. Some of the solutions to these complex problems include speech-enabling activities such as voice picking, multimodal mobile applications that can adapt RFID, barcode scanning, GPS, Bluetooth and more. The Consultant can intelligently guide managers through the integration of complex systems such as paletizers, AGV forks, pick-to-light, pick-by-voice, warehouse management systems, WMS, and other packages to make warehouse activities more efficient.

Every few years a major technology enhancement promising deep cost reductions with quick ROI flashes onto the scene. If operations attempted to adopt all such changes, it would no doubt cripple their supply chain activities. With the experienced advice of a qualified industry consultant, a warehouse management team can rest assured that only the right technology enhancement will be undertaken at the right time with an assurance that the technology fits firmly within the framework of company goals.

According to Logistics Management magazine, over 90 percent of warehouses and DCs still manually pick their orders using carts and pallet jacks. The typical warehouse uses some form of warehouse management system. Forty-four percent of all warehouses in the US employ high cost packaged warehouse management systems such as Red Prairie, Manhattan Associates, HighJump or SAP. Thirty six percent, however, use proprietary WMS solutions to control costs and long-term maintenance of the systems running warehouse operations.

Adding speech functionality, RFID or any of the numerous multimodal functions available on today’s mobile devices designed for inventory control, delivers dramatic increases in productivity, increases in order accuracy, and increases in safety within the warehouse and DC. Productivity increases, for example, by adding voice-picking functionality are typically 30-40%. Accuracy increases in order picking to 99.9% are the norm. Operators working with their hands and eyes free pay closer attention to their work which eliminates errors and ensures a safe working environment.

One industry myth is that higher costs are associated with integrating speech-recognition and multimodal mobile solutions to proprietary inventory control systems. The fact is that adding mobile services including speech to proprietary, hosted or open source WMS implementations can actually cost less than adding the same services to packaged systems. One reason for the lower cost to adding mobility and voice to proprietary warehouse management systems is that proprietary, in-house systems typically allow the mobile middleware to access the SQL or Oracle back-end database directly rather than conforming to a complex application programming interface, API, which is highly guarded by the packaged WMS vendors.

Regardless of your WMS, implementing a mobile solution that leverages your current mobile investment, and allows multiple tasks to be performed using the same mobile device yields a rapid ROI that is usually measured in just months.

By contrast, speech-enabling a warehouse is a turn-key practice across industries today. Thanks to the increased speed and memory capacity of mobile devices, more complex algorithms are being employed delivering near perfect accuracy for speech recognition in almost any environment. Voice systems have gone from using bulky computers and headsets that were difficult to configure and maintain to simple, lightweight, mobile systems.

Voice picking was once the preferred supply chain execution process to be speech-enabled. In voice picking, the speech synthesizer reads a location, product and quantity to the operator who moves the requested inventory to a conveyer belt and acknowledges the move by responding to the voice recognition software through the headset microphone. Speech recognition and speech synthesis have now moved beyond the simple pick process and can be found in other areas such as taking inventory, cycle counting, cross-docking, bulk moves, put away, maintenance and more.

Mobile devices capable of multimodal (multi-function) operation allow warehouse managers to add speech anywhere in the warehouse or stockyard where hands free and eyes free operation are required. Implementing voice technology beyond picking is delivering a quick return on investment, ROI, as voice technology implemented beyond picking has increased productivity as high as 40% in some functions.

Historically, speech recognition has been impossible to implement on a fork-lift, for example, because drivers typically cannot be tethered to the system with a wired headset. Within the last twelve months, Bluetooth technology embedded in wireless headsets has progressed in quality such that adding speech capability to fork-lift operations is viable. In addition, expensive proprietary equipment is not necessary as off-the-shelf hardware and software can be used to speech-enable the fork-lift and any other warehouse function.

The toughest task in voice technology is in the recognition. When considering voice technology for your logistics activities, be sure to engage consultants with significant experience in recognition systems and in leveraging your existing mobile assets in lieu of offering additional proprietary voice devices. Additionally, ensure that your voice vendor demonstrates the quality and accuracy of their voice system on the mobile device that you choose. In doing so, you will be successful in implementing voice technology beyond voice picking.

Speech recognition is accomplished by breaking the captured human voice into text consisting of words or phrases. For example, in a mobile order picking application for a warehouse, when an operator is directed to move five cases of product ABC, the product is moved then the operator says a completion phrase like, “Got It”. Next, the computer captures the phrase and returns the text “GOT IT” to the calling program, which then prompts the database to reduce the number of product ABC by a quantity of five.

Speech recognition systems are used primarily for order picking from a staging area to a pick belt or conveyor and from racks to carts or totes. Fork lift operators are beginning to use the technology as well now that Bluetooth wireless headsets are improving in speech quality. The use of speech recognition systems such as the VoCollect’s Talkman®, Lucasware, Vulcan Voice™ by CTG, and Voxware applications are most prevalent.

Speech recognition is less reliable when an operator has to speak a long sequence of alphanumeric characters such as serial numbers or UPC codes. This type of activity is best left to RFID and barcode scanning.

What tends to hold companies back from implementing a voice technology system?

The myth that deploying a voice-based solution will disrupt warehouse activities during the development, pilot and migration to voice technology can hold managers back from implementing a system. No time is ever the right time to slow down the order fulfillment process that requires voice technology.

In truth, implementing voice technology is no more intrusive than performing normal business operations as holding site tours, upgrading software and training the team. Adding speech recognition and voice guided work instruction to a facility tends to bring excitement of something new to the workers and invariably job satisfaction is improved.

In today’s supply chain execution activities, companies like Target and Wal-Mart have placed mandates on their vendors for RFID use to move inventory. But, for many of those suppliers, a return on investment for incorporating RFID has been elusive. Why?

For many early adopters of RFID, the technology has provided little more than a sophisticated way to scan packages. When using RFID simply as a replacement for a bar code scanning system adopters will see functionality that isn’t much of an improvement over bar code scanning. Thus, return on investment isn’t likely. So where can RFID be used that will make a positive impact on the bottom line?

The first place to find a rapid return on RFID investment is in the area of asset tracking. Warehouses, plants distribution centers and stockyards all use assets like totes, carts and pallets to move their inventory. When rigid passive tags are used in conjunction with an RFID reader system the cost of the RFID system can be quickly recovered by reducing the losses of these assets. Typical ROI on such an RFID implementation is under 18 months.

For smaller disposable passive tags used at the case level, return on investment is much harder to obtain. To realize an ROI the RFID equipment can be integrated into a multimodal system to use all of the peripherals of the mobile device collecting the RFID data. A return on investment of less than a year can be expected when using RFID in conjunction with voice and bar code systems.

When designing enhancements to your inventory control system or warehouse management system, consider implementing a multimodal system. Use the RFID equipment to detect check-digit locations, to track cases, pallets, totes, PC’s and carts. Use a voice component to guide the worker and to accept work acknowledgments and use the bar code scanner for long series of alphanumeric data such as serial numbers and UPC codes. Up front consulting and design may be required for a multimodal system, but such a system will save your facility time and resources long-term by providing a multi-functional solution and the right tool for each task.

In today's fast-paced, data centric warehouses, operations managers rely on real-time pick, place, and put metrics for timely forecasting, replenishment, etc.  A key component to real-time data acquisition with respect to inventory moves is voice picking.

Voice picking is a method of moving inventory using a voice-enabled mobile computer.  An operator is guided through a document pick sequence by text-to-speech technology.  For example, a worker wearing a headset can be directed to, "pick seven cases of product ABC."  Then, after moving the inventory from the staging area to the appropriate pick belt or conveyor, the worker acknowledges that the task has been completed by speaking into the headset microphone, "got it."  Once the acknowledgment has been made, the backend database is updated in real-time to show that the cases were moved.

Voice picking is a warehouse automation tool that dramatically increases the productivity of warehouse workers.  Productivity increases higher than 40% are not unusual.  In addition, increases in accuracy (to 99%) and error rates approaching zero are the norm.  These facts are made evident by multitudes of return on investment findings from early adopters of the technology, especially in the food and beverage and consumer packaged goods industries.  ROI for voice picking applications is measured in months, not years.

The cost for adding voice picking applications to your warehouse management system runs approximately $10,000 (2007) per operator in warehouses employing less than 20 voice pickers per shift and that number gradually decreases as the number of voice pickers increases.  These costs can be reduced if you leverage the mobile device assets that you already own which are being used for other tasks in the warehouse.

A key reason for implementing a Warehouse Management System, WMS, is to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, choosing the right package can be difficult. Before the package selection process, your firm should answer such questions as: What is the customer demand on my warehouse? How can we ensure vendor compliance? Are we geared toward multi-channel distribution?

By a careful analysis of the layout of your facility and the current throughput and productivity metrics of your workforce, Supply Chain Execution consultants can guide you through the package selection process ensuring the correct fit. The right WMS simplifies operations, increases productivity and decreases errors. In fact, a warehouse management system that is properly suited to your operations can improve warehouse facility layout, increase order fulfillment accuracy, provide picking, packing, replenishment, increase inventory accuracy, calculate item velocity for most efficient location, increase billing accuracy and help find hidden costs of doing business that can be monitored and streamlined.

When selecting a WMS solution, consider involving a Supply Chain Execution consultant that has been where you want to go. Not all consultants are created equal. Uncovering the costly details of a WMS implementation and migration takes experience. Ensure that your consultant has solid references in warehousing in your industry. Every industry has its own unique nuances when it comes to the supply chain. For example, if your firm is in the Food and Beverage industry, seek out an advisor who has experience in shelf life and climate control issues. By fitting the consultant to the task, you will be able meet your customer's needs in a timely fashion.

Of course, the Corporation's specific requirements always need to be taken into account when trying to answer such a question.  When it boils down strictly to whole dollars, implementing a WMS is typically far less costly than is an enterprise solution.  Enterprise solutions generally contain numerous cross-functional modules with a WMS being one or more of those module configurations. 

Important to consider when choosing between a WMS and ERP system are metrics such as system responsiveness, flexibility and functionality.  System responsiveness is a measure of the ability of the system to take input from various sources, multiplex that input and deliver it to the database in a timely fashion.  When researching WMS and ERP systems, be sure to request a demonstration to determine the responsiveness of the system.

Flexibility of management software is a measure of whether configuration or customization of the system is required to meet your company's needs.  Typically, configuration is far less costly than is software customization.  Is the package scalable across multiple warehouses?  Can the system be operated via mobile devices?  Can any of your company's existing hardware infrastructure be used?  These are some of the questions that can help to determine whether the system that you're researching is flexible.

Perhaps the most important metric is functionality.  Obviously, if the WMS or ERP system doesn't contain the proper functionality for your facility then that solution can quickly be excluded. In general, WMS systems offer far greater functionality for distribution centers and warehouse operations than do ERP warehouse or inventory control modules.  Critical warehouse functionality found in best-of-breed WMS systems such as asset definition and tracking, material-handling management, dock scheduling, yard management and shelflife management features are often lacking in ERP warehouse modules.

In the initial stages of determining which warehouse module to implement, clearly define the required functionality.  Even from WMS package to WMS package, there are vast differences.  Be sure to evaluate each package of interest against your list of desired functionality. Garnering the advice and guidance of consultants trained in methodologies for package selection can save your company time and money by ensuring that the selection, implementation and migration are done right the first time.

If you are looking to engineer a warehouse management system of your own, using open-source software may be your solution.  One such open-source implementation is called  myWMS. This solution is an open-source project and modular framework for the development of Warehouse Management Systems. Open-source projects provide the source code and can be used and enhanced by anyone to create a product of their own.

An open-source WMS project IS a framework for implementers offering a platform for the development of a WMS including most standard warehouse operational features.  Using such an open-source project allows developers to design and implement a system that is independent of the computer operating system.  In addition, numerous non-proprietary interfaces are available. 

An open-source WMS project IS NOT a full-featured warehouse management system.  Typically, the libraries of a framework and the documentation for a framework are the building blocks for a commercially viable WMS.  Another myth about open-source software is that it's free.  Although the license fees for open-source WMS software are insignificant to the costs associated with commercial off-the-shelf WMS software, these fees are still payable to the authors if the source code is to be used in a commercial application.

If your enterprise has an IT department, and is willing to staff or outsource the technical resources required to design, code and implement a WMS, the open-source route may be for you.