Voice automation is a hot topic in warehousing these days, especially with so many companies feeling intense pressure to keep up with growing demand amidst labor shortages and increased operating costs.
In this environment, voice automation is a tantalizing prospect because it’s proven to help workers dramatically increase their productivity, efficiency and accuracy. By allowing formerly manual tasks such as data entry, barcode scanning or mobile transactions to be performed by speaking simple voice commands into a mobile device, voice automation is a great way to help workers get far more done in less time and with fewer errors.
But most warehouses wonder just how much of an impact voice automation can really make. When our team at AccuSpeechMobile provides demos of our voice automation software to companies across North America, this is one of the first questions we encounter. Here are some stats to answer that question and demonstrate the real impact of voice automation.
Let’s use warehouse picking as an ideal example, and let’s take a look at a case study involving Cabela’s, a national retailer of outdoor recreational products.
After implementing our AccuSpeechMobile voice automation software with Zebra mobile devices in its picking and fulfillment operations, Cabela’s achieved 600% faster picking with 90% fewer errors. Moreover, the company achieved some remarkable numbers in other key areas. Cabela’s improved its inventory count efficiency by 200%, saved $1 million annually per app that it voice-enabled in its distribution operations, and reduced training time for new workers by 60%.
In all, using our software and Zebra hardware, Cabela’s integrated voice automation with more than 15 mobile apps, including apps for its Manhattan Associates omnichannel fulfillment software and Oracle JD Edwards warehouse management system.
Ultimately, after implementing voice automation across five national distribution centers plus 70 stores, Cabela’s dramatically improved its overall fulfillment performance and was able to meet peak and seasonal demand without hiring significantly more workers.
This is the kind of success we’ve seen with many of our other customers as well. When dozens or hundreds of workers are picking thousands or tens of thousands of orders every day, and you can help them make double-digit or triple-digit improvements in their picking efficiency and accuracy, it quickly adds up to major gains. When you multiply that by up to three shifts operating 24 hours per day and seven days per week, it can have a massive impact on warehouse performance and the bottom line.
In our voice automation implementations, we’ve seen many customers achieve hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars in annual productivity savings and reduction in errors and process quality issues. In virtually every case, companies see a proven ROI in 12 months or less, with considerable productivity boosts, labor savings and increased profits moving forward.
At a time when there’s a dearth of qualified and available warehouse workers, wages are on the rise, and a growing number of orders must be fulfilled, these kinds of improvements couldn’t have better timing.
At AccuSpeechMobile, our team takes great pride in helping companies achieve these results. These improvements are not only great for the business and the bottom line, but also great for workers too. Voice automation helps simplify their job and allow them to fulfill more orders with less manual effort. That makes a warehousing job a lot more attractive, gives workers a reason to stay with a company over the long haul, and makes it much faster and easier to train and onboard new workers too.
To learn more about voice automation, what results you can expect in your operations and how quickly you can achieve ROI, connect with us now by filling out the form. Let’s talk about your current picking operations and what we can do to help you drive productivity.
