Two Excellent Applications for Voice Recognition

[Roy Strauss]

Many companies who use bar code technology are still plagued with excessive writing and/or data entry. This happens when many different types of information must be captured for each item during receiving and supplying vendors only bar code item numbers and/or descriptions and no other fields, or there are numerous potential next steps in the receiving process and they must be identified on the fly. These situations can occur whether for new receipts or returns (reverse logistics).

Application 1: a very high volume pharmaceutical distributor must capture the NDC number or UPC bar code number and additional information as well for each product. This could include a lot number, batch number, expiration date, quantity received and possibly a serial number to track an item within a lot. The company referred to in this example set up multiple data entry stations. After scanning the product ID barcode, 4 other fields had to be data entered. This process almost doubled the time of the receiving process.

By implementing voice recognition system workers could be portable by wearing a head piece and prompted to read the information into the microphone by the system for required fields after scanning the product ID. The time saved by not moving the product to and from the data entry station and by speaking vs. entering data resulted in major increases in efficiency and reduction in costs.

Application 2: a consumer goods company shipped high volume truckloads of thousands of products to major retailers. Even though as a percentage of goods shipped returns were low, the number of objects returned was voluminous. Truckloads of large gay lords with numerous items in varying condition were received daily. Items returned could be saleable, saleable after re-boxing, sent to a checking station to check functionality, returned to vendor, hold for vendor inspection, or disposed of.

By implementing voice recognition system workers could scan the barcode and state the condition from the choices listed above and place the item on a conveyor which would then sort by condition so the product could be moved properly.

Voice recognition technology is better than ever and should be considered for laborious data entry situations.

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Roy Strauss is President of the Strauss Consulting Group, a supply chain logistics company that specializes in helping companies increase profits and customer service while reducing costs. For additional information, please go to www.scg4u.com.

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