Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), the second largest grocery cooperative
in the nation, implemented Vocollect's voice-directed distribution system
in its 1 million square-foot Kansas City, Kan., facility, replacing both paper
pick lists and hand-held scanning terminals in its case-picking operations.
The payback was under one year's time and error rates dropped 25% following
the installation.
"AWG has always used technology to improve its operations and provide
better service to our retail customers," said Rich Vastine, AWG's corporate
director of industrial engineering. "Previously, we went from paper to
bar code scanners to increase accuracy rates, but lost productivity. Now,
with voice, we get both benefits. A hands- and eyes-free operation is such
a natural way for our associates to work. They're more alert now and working
more efficiently - smarter, not harder.”
The system pairs Vocollect's industrial speech recognition technology with
its wearable Talkman voice computer, running Microsoft Windows CE and 802.11b
WLAN technologies. It was integrated with AWG's existing technology infrastructure.
www.vocollect.com
