Sainsbury's speaks for better warehouse performance

Sainsbury's hopes to get a quick payback for its voice system

Sainsbury's is using voice-based technology to improve picking operations at three of its distribution centres.

The system, provided by supplier VoiteQ, replaced a paper-based system at the retailer’s warehouses in Maltby, Stone and Skelton with voice-directed work which specifies the items that pickers need to place into cages for despatch to stores.

Some 100 devices – consisting of wearable voice computers and a microphone worn by the picker – are being used round the clock to pick up to 400,000 cases.

"Despite only recently implementing voice we have already seen significant benefits – accuracy has improved by over one per cent to 99.99 per cent and productivity is anticipated to increase by the end of 2008,” said Sainsbury's head of supply chain and convenience systems Nick Symmons.

“We have made a significant investment in this new system, but believe with this increase in efficiency we will quickly attain our return on investment," he said.