Voice technology has a longstanding history of transforming supply chains in Australia and New Zealand, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility at every stage of the process. As companies face increasing pressure to streamline operations and quickly respond to market demands, voice technology provides a powerful solution, enabling hands-free, real-time communication and task execution. Dematic, a leader in intelligent automation solutions, is at the forefront of this shift, offering innovative voice technology that helps businesses overcome key supply chain challenges.

Dematic Voice: The Basics

At its core, Dematic Voice uses voice recognition technology to guide workers through tasks like case picking and eaches picking. Instead of relying on handheld devices or paper-based systems, workers receive spoken instructions through headsets, which allows them to keep their hands free, improving efficiency and accuracy. Without needing to look down at a device or paper picking slip, operators benefit from improved visibility and awareness of their surroundings, which helps reduce the risk of safety incidents. This is particularly important in busy warehouse environments where safety is paramount.

Features & Benefits of Dematic Voice

Dematic Voice offers a range of features designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. Companies that treat voice as a technology upgrade alone tend to see 5-10% productivity gains, while companies that utilise voice as part of a broader warehouse operations optimisation initiative typically experience a 25-35% increase in case picking productivity, and 45% or more in piece picking. This enhanced productivity can significantly transform operations and drive efficiency.

Here are some of the key benefits:

• Flexibility & Agility: The system allows real-time prioritisation of tasks, such as handling cancelled orders. This agility down to the pick level ensures that operations remain smooth, even when last-minute changes occur.
• Quick Onboarding for Instant Productivity: Dematic Voice is easy to learn and workers using it can be productive within an hour, which is also helpful when bringing in new or temporary staff. When compared to the time it takes to learn other technology solutions, training time and costs can be cut dramatically with Voice, in many cases more than 50%.
• Seamless Operation During Outages: One of the standout features of Dematic Voice is its ability to keep working, even during signal disruptions. The system allows workers to continue picking without interruption, ensuring productivity isn’t affected by WiFi blackouts or other network issues.
• Optimising Picking Routes: The software uses predictive analytics to forecast labour requirements based on current workloads, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently. This helps managers better plan and optimise their workforce, avoiding bottlenecks during peak times.
• Adaptive Learning for Accuracy: Dematic Voice employs adaptive learning to improve voice recognition accuracy. Whether it’s learning a worker’s unique voice patterns or being trained on specific words, the system continually adjusts to enhance performance.

Innovations in Voice Technology

Dematic Voice drives innovation in supply chain operations. With a dedicated software team based in Australia, Dematic is constantly developing new features to meet the evolving needs of its clients:

• Integration with Complementary Technologies: Voice picking can be combined with other technologies, such as vision systems, to increase accuracy when handling smaller or high-value components. This integration ensures that businesses can tailor their solutions to meet specific operational needs.
• Internet of Things (IoT): The use of IoT technology allows for real-time tracking and monitoring, giving businesses complete visibility over their operations. This can be particularly useful for inventory management, where accurate tracking is essential.
• Enhanced User Interfaces: Dematic has developed more intuitive and user-friendly voice interfaces. Tailored specifically for each customer, these interfaces use technology layering, allowing features to be turned on or off as needed. This flexibility ensures that the system remains efficient and adaptable, even as business needs change.
• Visual User Interface: In addition to voice instructions, Dematic Voice also offers a visual user interface for greater clarity and accuracy. This dual approach ensures workers have all the information they need at their fingertips, reducing errors and speeding up the picking process.

Customisation & Local Expertise

What truly sets Dematic apart in the market is its ability to provide a fully customised solution, designed around the specific needs of each customer. The process starts with consultancy, where Dematic’s experts work closely with businesses to understand their process flows, identify pain points, and develop a system that uses the right technology for the job.

Dematic’s software team in Australia is dedicated to providing cutting-edge solutions tailored to the local market. The company’s strong local presence also ensures that customers receive the support they need, whether it’s through consulting, project management, or ongoing 24/7 customer service.

Dematic offers tailored super-user training sessions, ensuring that teams are fully equipped to get the most out of their voice solutions. This “Hypercare” phase includes dedicated support during the go-live process, ensuring a smooth transition and immediate troubleshooting if needed.

The Dematic Difference: Market Leaders in Voice Technology

Having been a leader in voice technology for 25 years, Dematic continues to push boundaries and set industry standards. With an unmatched level of experience, the company has implemented voice solutions for some of the biggest names in retail, manufacturing, and logistics across Australia and New Zealand. Dematic’s ability to fine-tune and tailor all elements of a voice solution—whether it’s WiFi, devices, or software—ensures that businesses get a fully optimised system that works seamlessly in their specific environment. This commitment to innovation, combined with a strong local presence, means Dematic remains the go-to provider for voice technology in the region.

• Click here to continue learning about Voice Picking solutions.

The post Dematic Voice: Boost Productivity by 25-45%, Enhance Accuracy, and Improve Safety in the Supply Chain appeared first on Dematic Real Time Logistics.

Tasty Fresh delivers fresh and hot food, snacks, and drinks right to the door of workplaces daily in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Newcastle, and Queensland.

“Tasty Fresh is a national business that started back in 1979,” explains Colin Lear, Founding Director at Tasty Fresh Food Co. “We have six outlets across four states and service around 35,000 customers per day from around 153 vans. We produce around 60,000 units per day from our facilities, and we handle around 100,000 units per day.”

Tasty Fresh recently engaged Dematic to help the organisation move from a manual way of tracing stock with paper and tablets to a more automated and centralised solution that delivers higher levels of efficiency, productivity, and accuracy for its supply chain.

“Tasty Fresh’s stocktaking processes previously involved each individual Van Sales Manager doing a stocktake on each individual SKU on our vans,” explains Adam Van Bergen, National Operations Manager at Tasty Fresh Food Co. “With so many people counting so many SKUs, accurately managing stock was a real challenge.”

A key focus of the project was to be able to provide data back to Tasty Fresh for inventory and reporting purposes. A real-time logistics voice-on-Android solution was selected as the best system to meet the needs of Tasty Fresh.

The voice solution deployed by Dematic works as a seamless, paperless, and hands-free eyes-up solution. Operators are guided through a workflow using a mobile device and voice headset, with inputs from voice and scanning automatically sent back to Tasty Fresh’s central supply chain system. This includes data gathered through anything from order picking to replenishment and stocktake.

“The voice solution was deployed at each Tasty Fresh depot,” said Van Bergen. “The two primary voice workflows that were implemented were pick-to-trolley and van loading.”

Tasty Fresh team members are advised on which food or drink product SKUs and quantities are to be loaded onto each trolley. When completed, they proceed to van loading. Team members are then instructed, per van ID, which SKUs and associated quantities are to be replenished into each van in SKU sequence.

Product shorts, overfills, and audits are all tracked simultaneously, saving workers the time of having to go back and forth doing these tasks separately. This helps Tasty Fresh to check expected stock from point-of-sale deductions versus physical van replenishment – all through the one voice technology process.

“The voice solution tells us what to load inside the vans and tells the system how many we are loading,” said Aline Parra Sanchez, Brisbane Warehouse Manager at Tasty Fresh Food Co. “This means that when we are loading we are also doing the stocktake. It’s a great system that ensures our stock is right by checking our sales match with the stock being loaded in the vans.”
Voice technology delivers up to a 35% productivity improvement from legacy systems by allowing worker hands to always be free to pick products and complete all warehouse-to-delivery vehicle tasks.

With eyes always focused on the job, workers are also able to quickly find, pick, and pack the right products, reducing errors by up to 50%. Additionally, automated stocktake has also reduced not only time but also errors through manual counting.

“Voice has improved productivity across the business,” said Van Bergen. “We’re saving between five and ten minutes a day per Van Sales Manager, and while that may not sound like a big deal, five to ten minutes across 170 employees a day is quite a significant cost savings.”

Click here to learn more about Voice Picking Solutions from Dematic.

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