Picking the right solution

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With a growing selection of warehouse picking solutions in the Middle East, can these products really help to boost your supply chain productivity?

A burly warehouse operator leans over a pallet of boxes wearing a headset and microphone. A robotic female voice comes over the headphones: "pick three". The warehouse worker dutifully leans over and humps three boxes from the pallet onto the truck. "Pick three, alpha" he says, confirming that the request has been met.

The video, shown recently at a trade conference in Dubai, aims to showcase a relatively new phenomenon in the regional logistics industry - pick by voice.

Indeed, a young market and the low cost of labour have meant that the Middle East has largely been free of the pressures that have driven European and US providers to adopt sophisticated picking technologies.

But all that could be changing. Rising fuel costs have meant that logistics managers are having to make savings wherever they can and this has led to a greater shift towards inventory transparency.

"Picking errors can cause major and costly problems for retailers as wrong goods are provided in the delivery," says Geoff Wheatley, regional director of SSI Schaefer in the Middle East and Africa. "This leads to some products being out of stock, thus resulting in disgruntled customers. It also means that costs are effectively doubled as the problem will need to be rectified."

To combat this concern, managers in the region are looking to picking solutions in order to cut losses.

Pick by voice is one of many solutions currently on offer for warehouse managers looking to boost productivity and reduce labour costs. Others range from handheld RFID scanners to the space-age looking ‘pick by light' solution.

The way RFID works is by having a small ‘tag' attached to each product. Scanners are then attached to the doors of the warehouse or forklift trucks to record the movement of goods as they enter or leave the warehouse. Similarly, when retrieving goods from shelves, handheld scanners register an item as ‘picked' on the wider warehouse management system. The system has advantages over barcode scanners as it does not require the tag to be in physical contact with the scanner in order to register it.

"Most of these technologies for picking have come from real challenges faced in warehouse environments," says Hemal Shah, director of Logistixware in Dubai. "For example, RFID's use in supply chain management was a result of the big manual labour process that was involved in identifying individual cases and pallets."

However, RFID is not without its detractors. Many operators complain that RFID scanners are unwieldy, especially in cases where operators need to lift goods with both hands. Not only is this method awkward, it can also lead to scanners being dropped and damaged.

"Every technology used in the warehouse has its advantages," says Steve Gerrard, regional managing director for Voxware in the EMEA region. "Mistakes are sometimes made when a single technology is stretched to becomes a universal solution, because this inevitably results in forcing the technology to accommodate workflows that are outside of its ‘sweet spot'. RFID is fantastic for tracking the bulk movement of goods. However, it is not a good solution for manual operations at the pick face where items must be moved by hand."

In July, a representative from Voxware sparked debate at a conference organised by Dubai-based material handling specialist Span Group after its video presentation on pick by voice technologies. The company specialises exclusively in the solution and although it does not currently have any clients in the Middle East, it is one of the top names in the business in the US and Europe. It is clear that the niche focus reflects an unswerving faith in the superiority of the solution over others.

"Voice picking is the most accurate way to direct manual labourers in the warehouse, because voice applications require workers to verify their activities," says Gerrard.

"In addition, workers can be more productive because their hands are free and their eyes are focused on the job itself. This motif also contributes to improved workforce safety. Because workers are directed as they perform tasks, new employees can be trained by the system itself, thus freeing managers for other duties while getting new workers up to speed in record time."

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