Vocollect wearable voice systems benefit Affiliated Foods

Vocollect Inc has announced continuing enhancements to its industrial wearable voice system for warehouses and distribution centers (DCs).

“We’ve been using Vocollect’s industrial wearable solution in our warehouse operations for five years for selection, letdown, put-away, and receiving, and we’ve experienced growth and success,” said Michael Lindley, director of IT with Affiliated Foods Inc in Amarillo TX. “For us, Vocollect’s vision of the voice-enabled warehouse as the starting point for workflow planning makes total sense.”

With $1.4 billion in sales, Affiliated Foods serves more than 840 grocery and convenience stores and chains across seven states. The 60-year-old company’s 175 tractors haul grocery, produce, meats, dairy products, and bread from a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse.

Results the company has experienced so far include:

•Productivity—Moved from three shifts to two.

•Accuracy—Increased from low 90s to 98+.

•Safety—Reduced aisle congestion.

•Training time—Reduced from four days to just hours.

•Worker satisfaction—Workers love voice and won’t go back to the old methods.

•Customer satisfaction—Store personnel are pleased with increases in accuracy.

•Strong increased profitability.

•ROI (return on investment)—With the implementation done in four phases, ROI was reached in seven months on the first phase, and in a much shorter timeframe with the remaining phases.

“Vocollect has helped us address key business issues in all phases of our warehouse operation. With the old paper/label method of doing selection, we had more congestion in the aisles, more damaged product, and more accidents,” said Lindley. “Our retailers tell us that, with the Vocollect system, they have better accuracy of orders, less damage, and more on-time deliveries.”

“With Vocollect, our accuracy is better, our service level is better, our employee turnover is down, and the employees are happier,” said Tammie Coffee, Affiliated Foods chief financial officer.

Vocollect’s integrated industrial wearable voice system is based on the combination of the Talkman T2x, T5, or T5m wearable voice appliance, SR or SRX series headsets, and a suite of supporting software.

For more information, visit www.vocollect.com or call 412.349.2515.