Book distributor Littlehampton Book Services (LBS) is using voice technology to improve picking accuracy at its warehouse.

During the four-week trial period, the distributor achieved a 95 per cent reduction in picking errors, reducing weekly mistakes committed by its worst pickers from 14 to four.

"We had a healthy wariness of installing new technology, as did our operatives. But we were extremely pleased with the results, not only the dramatic increase in accuracy achieved during the trial but also the feedback from our team,” said LBS' operations director Graham Money.

“The team appreciate how natural it is to use a voice system and how it has actually made their tasks easier," he said.

“And the fact that they don’t need to carry scanners around and are hands-free speeds up work processes.”

Under the new system, which will replace LBS' existing paper-based picking, operators select the zone to work in, wait for a box to arrive, tell the voice device the invoice number and are then directed to pick all the items for that box within that zone.

Future plans for the system include extending its functionality to bulk picking, replenishment and stock control.

The software was provided by supplier VoiteQ.