From an AccuSpeechMobile perspective, preparing to build a new voice project is a straight-forward process and goes pretty smoothly. Your question to ask – are you truly ready in all areas for a smooth implementation? For instance, if you have new equipment such as scanners, headsets, tablets, or smartphones, it is ideal if the IT team has added the equipment to the network and confirmed that connectivity and usability to the target application is working properly. Network connectivity, work flow and hardware installation should be complete and tested before beginning the voice implementation.
Another area that can be prepared for in advance involves testing. After building the voice project and we are ready to begin initial testing, many times test orders are not ready and can take a lot of time to setup. What is a good test order to prepare? A good test order will contain picks that represent a normal work flow; but, for complete testing, add the edge cases, including error messages and exceptions for a complete scenario test. Different work flows bring up different screens and error messages in scenarios like short picks, invalid inputs, stopping in the middle of a batch pick, pallet picking versus cart picking and many more that only a seasoned professional at that facility can provide consult to test. So, preparing all types of orders for testing, standard and error types included, will save time but also provide critical visibility as to the best way to handle these issues in real time. One of the key strengths of AccuSpeechMobile is the ability to make these changes on the fly and to allow well-prepared facilities that have all situations ready to test to move through the implementation process even more rapidly.
The most successful roll outs always have a customer point person that wants to learn about the product – including how to write grammars themselves – and is involved with the daily operations of the warehouse. The point of contact will know the best ways to ensure test orders are created, how to identify the best testers, configure equipment and setup the process each user will be following. This key contact is usually the first tester to hit the floor and complete a few picks to make sure it works the way they would want it to work. They also typically become the expert for the voice interface. Most importantly, they lead the charge for training. Helping users become comfortable with the tool increases productivity and improved picking rates occur faster. For the first two weeks, observing the users on the floor is important because many will naturally try to move back to what is familiar; however, a portion of the users can also provide valuable insight as to final changes to increase productivity and accuracy to an even greater degree. It is critical to get this user feedback as it also provides buy-in by key users for the voice installation project.
Developing a new voice project from our point of view is simple. Show us what you have (processes, workflows, screens) then let us build it. This is a “fresh eye ball” approach that brings together “what you do” or “what you have done for years” and allows us to show you what we see. We look for the steps a person takes to get through the process and we will build a voice command that gets you through the steps in the most optimized fashion. We love scanning as an input because it is fast and accurate; but, where it makes sense, let’s setup a spoken input. Say something like “quantity is 3” so we can confirm the value is correct then input the value to the screen or, if it is incorrect, we can help by saying “wrong quantity” to help keep the accuracy up, instead of just hearing a tone.
At the end of the day, AccuSpeechMobile uses proven techniques that have been very successful for our customers; and, where effective, demonstrate another way of doing things by using a voice interface in the best intended way for productivity gains and error reduction. We always partner with our customers to build the voice interface, so it makes sense for you and your environment.
