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INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect Partners . Brian Preece R & D Director BCP Ltd. Who is BCP?. Major supplier in Europe of Food Wholesale, Retail and Cash and Carry systems Users: Spar, NAAFI, Pets at Home, BWG, Musgrave, ADM, Morrisons, BFG etc… Area: UK and EU
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INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect Partners Brian Preece R & D Director BCP Ltd
Who is BCP? • Major supplier in Europe of Food Wholesale, Retail and Cash and Carry systems • Users: Spar, NAAFI, Pets at Home, BWG, Musgrave, ADM, Morrisons, BFG etc… • Area: UK and EU • 1st “Extranet” - Late 1970s Telspar • 1st Scanning in convenience stores in UK • Early adopter of SonicMQ® with our AIMS wholesale/ retail messaging hub INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge® 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
RFID Emerging technology Needs specialist hardware Transforms supply chain Needs new Progress technology Benefits being established Passive technology Positive ID of items Voice Direction Mature technology Needs specialist hardware Transforms supply chain Works with current core Progress technology Well established benefits Active technology Requires operator intervention to ID items RFID vs. Voice Direction INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Typical Supply Chain Operations INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Demo INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
BCP and Voice Direction • BCP has chosen the Vocollect system to provide voice hardware • Uses Talkman Development Environment • Vocollect formed in 1987 • Based in Pittsburgh, office in UK • 350 plus employees • Creators of Talkman Voice Recognition system and developers of proprietary “Blue Streak” speech recognition • 120,000 terminals in use worldwide, 10,000 plus in the UK • Installations on 6 continents and 27 countries • 80% of Voice-Directed Warehouse market • Verticals include grocery, apparel, automotive, pharmaceutical, convenience stores, stationary etc. INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Voice Direction Technology • Talkman Unit (T5) • Rechargeable battery. • Any spread spectrum RF network. • Headset • Scanner • Waist Mounted Printer • Rugged, can be used in hostile environments • Works well in extreme noise conditions INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
How does it work? • Operator wears a specialised Voice Recognition computer (VRC) • Order is loaded into the unit by RF • VRC directs operator to the warehouse location and says how many to pick • Operator confirms the pick • Successful pick sent to Warehouse Management System by RF • Stock is updated in real time INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
What if the stock is wrong? • Programming in the workflow app in the VRC decides whether to: • Pick an alternative • Send a short quantity • Repick later • And also alerts the Warehouse Management System in Real Time to the discrepancy INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Voice Overview • Speech Recognition • Enables a voice computer to convert its operator’s speech into text • Speech Synthesis • Enables a voice computer to talk to its operator • RF LAN Technology • Allows a wearable voice computer to communicate, in real time, with remote information systems INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Speech Recognition • Transcribing human speech into text is critical • Attention needs to be paid to the size of the vocabulary • Recognizing a single word from a vocabulary of 50,000 is much more difficult than from a vocabulary of 100 • For warehouse purposes, it must work well with highly variable and extreme ambient noise • In early systems there needed to be a definite gap between words. Now speech can be continuous INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Programming the T5 • The T5 can work mostly disconnected • Visual programming environment allows you to program: • Prompts to the operator • Calculations • Storing data in variables • Making decisions based on • Operator responses • State of internal variables and data from the server • Getting data from the server • Sending data to the server • Waiting for a predetermined time INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Here is a sample INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Getting data from the server Look Up Table (LUT) INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Sending data to the server Output Data Request (ODR) INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Code View INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Recommended architecture At start of a new task Warehouse Management System Voice Server FTP server Voice tasks and Voice profiles Main applications Orders, Substitutions, Stock updates, etc. LUT Stateless Socket task Voice interface programs Application Database Intermediate database ODR INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Why another box? • Technical reasons • Isolates voice from problems on WMS • Improved performance • Simplifies the interface • Commercial reasons • Allows the Voice software to be a separately sellable module INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Communicating with the T5 • Once a task has begun, the T5 drives the communication • When it requires data, it requests a Look Up Table • When it has data to send, it sends an Output Data Request • Since both LUTs and ODRs can identify the task, operator, etc, the Progress socket application can be stateless INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Code View INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Accuracy/ Productivity benefits • Safety benefits - Hands and eyes free • Increased accuracy – 99.9% plus is not uncommon • Short pick – credit claims and margin lost • Over pick –transport and labour returns costs • Mispick – credit claim, lost margin, write off if over shelf life • 15% increase in productivity • Speed of work • No return to office for next pick list • Faster recording of catch weights INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Real Time Benefits • Real time updating of the main system • Triggered let downs to reduce re-picks • Include PI in replenishment • Immediate action on stock errors • Improved service level • Reduced time investigating discrepancies INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Admin Cost Benefits • Removes the cost of printing and distributing picking documents • Remove cost of re-keying order amendments, picking confirmations, and catch weights (1 in 15 key depressions is an error) • Ability to change task priorities at a stroke • Training costs reduced • Voice is more intuitive than keyboard based systems INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
General Benefits • When all the factors above are considered, a Fast Return on Investment can be achieved • Some figures show a 6 month ROI • Then year on year savings • We have pulled this together into a ROI calculator • See our white paper on ROI: • http://www.bcpsoftware.com/solutions/voice/whitepaper.php INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
BCP’s experience • Errors decimated • In one wholesaler, in the first department Voice was implemented, there was only one picking error in the last 4 week period – an error rate of 0.0017%! • Training costs decimated • New pickers can be fully effective within hours • Productivity improved • All pickers are now as productive as the best pickers used to be INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Integrated Voice and RFID • Wearable RFID reader • Belt • Vest • Could eventually be incorporated into the Talkman unit • Short range – 3 feet, so only reads a few tags at a time • Solves the problem of RFID “floods” • Useful for detail work INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
The “Box in hand” problem Primary R & D focus at the moment Replaces check digit or scanner identification of the “box in hand” Further efficiency improvements Even better accuracy Incremental palette building INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Other applications • Background inventory checking • Do a stock check automatically while the operative is doing something else • Finding items in unstructured environments • E.g. Retail store stockroom • It’s easier to find things if you know they’re there! • Short range allows location by signal strength • Alternatively, locate relative to nearby items INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
For Partners only! Vertical markets are a double edged sword! You need end users to educate you in a vertical market They need an incentive to make this effort An innovative technology like Voice Direction gives them that incentive INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Agenda • Voice Direction compared and contrasted with RFID • Voice Directed Picking live demonstration • How Voice Direction works • Programming in the Voice Direction environment • Interfacing Voice Direction to OpenEdge 10 Applications • How Voice Direction is transforming warehouse operations NOW • The Future – integrated Voice and RFID • Using Innovation to expand your market • Conclusion INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Conclusions • Voice Direction offers: • Dramatic increases in productivity & accuracy • Dramatic reduction in errors • Fast Return On Investment • High level of acceptability with users • Voice is complementary to RFID • RFID locates stock, Voice directs the picker • Voice can be an interim measure while RFID matures • For Partners, Voice can widen your market INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Questions INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Thank you for your time! brian@bcpsoftware.com www.bcpsoftware.com http://www.vocollect.com INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners