Certainly faster

Labor is in short supply in Bad Hersfeld. The logistics capital impresses with almost full employment, which means that local companies are competing for employees. Against this background, the distribution center of RS Components GmbH focuses on ergonomics, safety and freedom of choice. This applies in particular to the more than 90 order pickers. In three shifts, the team picks around 6,000 deliveries of electronics, automation and control elements, tools and consumables. Several hundred items from the RS Components range come from Honeywell. The range extends from various micro and limit switches to Hall effect sensors, roller plungers and gloves. This makes RS Components one of Honeywell's largest and most important distributors.

Free hands, free view

Each order is put together in one or more plastic tubs, which travel through the storage areas on roller and belt conveyors with a total length of 2.2 kilometers. Up to 1,400 tubs are moved here every hour, stopped at the individual stations and filled by the order pickers.

"With voice control, our order pickers now manage 70 picks per hour, exceeding the previous method with pick lists by around 17 percent" Markus Schmerer, Operations Manager, RS Components GmbH

To further improve working conditions as well as quality and performance, RS Components decided to switch the picking processes from paper lists to pick-by-voice back in 2014. "We wanted our employees to have both hands and a clear field of vision when picking, so that they could concentrate better on their actual work," reports Markus Schmerer, who is responsible for operations at RS in Bad Hersfeld. After a selection process, the company opted for a solution from Honeywell Vocollect voice Solutions, which was implemented by Dematic. In addition to the good price-performance ratio, the good experience that the distributor had gained with the Group's components and products also spoke in favor of Honeywell.

The new technology was ready in June 2015. This was preceded by a project phase lasting around four months, during which the interfaces between the Sicalis WMS, the VoiceCatalyst speech recognition software and Honeywell's VoiceConsole were created. The VoiceConsole is a browser-based application for managing devices, workers and configuration settings as well as for system diagnostics. Management functions for devices and operators provide an overview of who is currently using voice devices and which applications are running on each device. New user profiles can also be created and customized.

Talkman of your choice

The picking orders are sent directly from the WMS to the voice control device - the so-called Talkman - via WLAN. There, the VoiceCatalyst software converts the information into voice commands, which are then sent to the employee's headset via Bluetooth. RS Components uses two different types of Talkman and headsets, which employees can choose from. The A730 Talkman devices with integrated scanner and wireless headset account for the largest share. A total of 28 units of this model are available. There are also five A720 Talkman devices with a wired headset. "Some employees prefer this variant because the headsets are a little lighter," reports Torsten Knothe, who is responsible for logistics at the RS Components distribution center.

Voice Results

Goals

• Increase productivity
• Error-free order picking
• Faster training of new employees
• Increase safety in the workplace
• Improve ergonomics and employee satisfaction

Application

• Voice-controlled picking and replenishment control
• Combination with the Sicalis 3.1 warehouse management system from Dematic
• Parallel use of Talkman A720 and A730

Installation of

• 28 SRX2 headsets
• 28 Talkman A730
• 5 SR/SL14 headsets
• 5 Talkman A720
• Voice control software VoiceCatalyst 2.1
• VoiceConsole 5.x

Results

• 17 percent increase in productivity
• 99.9 percent picking quality
• High level of employee satisfaction thanks to excellent ergonomics and options

17 percent more power

"With voice control, our pickers can now manage 70 picks per hour, which is around 17% more than the previous method with pick lists. Back then, the average was 60 picks per hour," emphasizes Schmerer. The faster processes in the event of shortages or shortfalls at the pick location also contributed to this increase in performance. "When working with pick lists, shortages had to be entered immediately on the PC, which was cumbersome," explains David Daniel, who also deals with the picking processes as "Supervisor Flow Through and Internal Communication".

Employees are trained in speech recognition with comprehensive and illustrated information boards.

Training is now also faster than before: it only takes three days for a new employee to achieve the same picking performance as their colleagues. "When picking with pick lists, this figure was still five days," emphasizes Schmerer. However, voice control has not only improved picking performance, but also quality. "The already very good error index improved again from 99.7 to 99.9 percent," confirms Knothe. In addition to the technology, the "feel-good factor" of the workforce certainly plays a role in these values. The order pickers can therefore not only choose between the Talkman models, but also determine the fine details. So-called "task packages" are available for this purpose, which can be defined by the employee in the voice dialog. For example, each employee can choose whether the storage location addresses are announced in the form of individual letters (N) or in words according to the radio alphabet (North Pole). Illustrated instructions or "help cards" are also available for all processes.

Further potential

The task packages are also subject to a continuous improvement process. Changes and adjustments to the task packages are made by Dematic GmbH, which is supporting the entire project as a partner of Honeywell. "We are very satisfied with our long-standing collaboration. It therefore made sense to commission Dematic with the conversion to pick-by-voice," says Schmerer, who still sees a lot of potential in voice control. In the future, the Operations Manager also wants to optimize the routes of the pickers and introduce multi-order picking. There are also plans to control stocktaking and storage using voice technology. "Voice technology offers many possibilities that go far beyond order picking," emphasizes Schmerer.

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