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INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
RFID vs. Voice DirectionRFID
Emerging technology
Needs specialist hardware
Transforms supply chain
Needs new Progress technology
Benefits being established
Passive technology
Positive ID of items
Voice DirectionMature technology
Needs specialist hardware
Transforms supply chain
Works with current core Progress technology
Well established benefits
Active technology
Requires operator intervention to ID items
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Typical Supply Chain Operations
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Operation Voice Only With RFIDPicking Operator checks goods
against ASN and confirms by Voice
Voice directs picker to location, RFID tag confirms correct pick
Goods Receiving
Operator checks goods against ASN and confirms by Voice
RFID reports delivery and compares to ASN
Put Away Voice directs operator to free locations, operator confirms locations by Voice
Voice directs operator to free locations, RFID confirms locations
Replenish-ment
Voice sends operator to bulk stock location, then to picking location, operator confirms location by voice
Voice sends operator to bulk stock location, then to picking location, RFID confirms location
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
• 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
Speech Recognition
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
Getting data from the serverLook Up Table (LUT)
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Sending data to the serverOutput Data Request (ODR)
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
Recommended architecture
Voice Server
Intermediate database
Warehouse Management
System
ApplicationDatabase
FTP serverVoice tasks andVoice profiles
Main applications
StatelessSocket task
Voice interfaceprograms
LUT
ODR
At startof a newtask
Orders,Substitutions,
Stockupdates, etc.
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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/white
paper.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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
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
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice – Perfect PartnersBrian Preece
Progress Exchange 200710 – 13 June, 2007, Phoenix, AZ USA
Questions
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners
Thank you for your time!
http://www.vocollect.com
INNOV-1: RFID and Voice - Perfect Partners