During the spring of 2012 Valio expanded voice-directed picking into their main warehouse in Helsinki, Finland. Valio renewed the whole warehouse management system and at the same time the old-fashioned and somewhat poorly working picking with handheld devices was replaced by voice-directed picking.

Voice-Directed Picking – A major safety factor in Valio’s Main Warehouse

Customer-specific picking is primarily done with forklifts. As voice-directed picking releases the picker’s eyes from checking the screen of the handheld device, it makes a huge difference to the work safety and it also improves working ergonomics significantly.

According to Jarno Pajunen, Valio’s Project Manager of the main warehouse renewal, voice-directed picking has been nothing but a success after the minor challenges with WLAN were solved.

In the main warehouse Valio stores all the cardboard-packed products. The main warehouse is very large with, among other things, distribution centers for the whole Helsinki metropolitan area and production warehousing. The main warehouse serves both Valio’s local distribution centers and terminals by providing over 110 million kilos of products on an annual level.

Valio began using voice-directed picking in their distribution center in Oulu and started gathering information about voice picking and possible renovation of the warehouse management system. After Oulu, voice-directed picking solutions have been implemented in one other distribution center and in the main warehouse. Implementation is under way in two other distribution centers in central Finland.

Compared to a basic picking process, the working flows and picking tasks at Valio warehouses include multiple different dialogues and therefore it is extremely important to observe the functionality of the dialogues, especially keeping the future projects in mind.

Helpdesk services ensure usability

The voice-directed picking solution delivered by Optiscan is an important part of the renovation process of the WMS managed by Cimcorp Oy. Fluent usage of the warehouse system is highly important and therefore Valio’s whole WMS is secured with a comprehensive backup service package.

“At the moment circa 240 pickers are using voice-directed picking at Valio. In order to initiate the staff into using voice as their primary working method, we have built a separate testing environment in which creating the speech profile, training and initiation can be taken care of before using the system in the real working environment,” describes Pajunen, and continues: “With the initiation material provided by Optiscan and the training sessions they arranged for the supervisors and workers it has been fairly easy to motivate our staff to use voice.”

“In order to execute the implementation of voice as flexibly as possible, we chose a few of the most eager learners and trained them as instructors. These instructors then passed their knowledge on to the rest of our workers. Despite the minor suspicion in the beginning, the voice-directed system has been adopted very well,” Pajunen emphasizes.

Seamless co-operation between all the parties is the main requirement in order to achieve success in such a large project. Pajunen praises both Optiscan and Cimcorp for their co-operational skills. Both partners also receive special acknowledgement for quick reactions in all situations during the whole process.

Optiscan Group

Optiscan Group has been providing solutions for warehouse logistics for over 40 years. The solutions are based on Voice and barcode technologies for enhancing logistics processes in warehouse, retail and healthcare logistics. We help companies to achieve improved efficiency and productivity by offering warehouse process management solutions. Optiscan operates in Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic countries.

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