The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Product decision · 1987–2009
Vocollect gave pickers a headset instead of a scanner, freeing their hands and eyes.
Vocollect's wearable voice system talks a picker through each pick and hears the confirmation, so hands and eyes stay on the goods, not a screen.
Vocollect
the move
Warehouse picking usually means scanning boxes with a handheld gun, then writing or confirming, over and over: reach, scan, return, repeat hundreds of times a shift.
In 1987 Roger Byford and Lerry Sweeney founded Vocollect and put speech recognition and text-to-speech in a wearable called Talkman. The system tells the picker which item, where it is and how many, and the picker answers out loud.
Because the worker's hands and eyes stay on the product, picking gets faster and errors fall; speech also removes the reach-and-scan motions that cause repetitive-stress injuries, and works in cold stores where a touchscreen would fail.
Clients reported accuracy up to 99.99% and productivity gains of 10 to 35%; DSV Solutions said accuracy rose about 315% in 13 months and productivity about 12%, while Littlehampton Books cut weekly errors from 12 to 14 down to one.
why it works
- Voice confirmation catches a wrong pick before it ships
- No screen means hands and eyes stay on the actual goods
- Removing scan motions cuts both time and repetitive-strain injuries
what transfers
Choose the interface to match the human's free senses: when hands and eyes are occupied, voice can beat a screen, because the worker already possesses the best display available.
what came after
Voice picking became a standard warehouse tool; Vocollect was later acquired by Honeywell, and its hands-and-eyes-free dialogue model underpins modern voice and augmented-reality picking in logistics.
references
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