Meru Networks (News - Alert), Inc., a company with wireless solutions headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, announced on November 19 that German baked goods wholesaler BÄKO HANSA, a supplier of raw materials, has chosen Meru “to support a pick-by-voice system at its Grimmen (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) and Michendorf branches.”
The agreement is that Meru will set up a high-availability network to support BÄKO’s voice system: It will be an integrated solution designed for workers who use a wireless, wearable headset and microphone to carry out warehousing operation functions, effectively and with accuracy, said Heinz Jürgen Bösch, IT manager at BÄKO HANSA.
According to Bösch, the voice-directed warehouse system now runs extremely well and employees are working more productively; this is thanks to the reliability of the wireless network designed and deployed by Meru Platinum Partner LANtana GmbH. As a result, it “has enabled BÄKO to reduce the error rate for order consignments by 95 percent.”
In fact, voice technology allows users of BÄKO warehouse to maximize the benefits of real-time verbal communication with the WLAN: Is used to carry out critical operations as efficiently as possible in order to avoid loading “the wrong products or incorrect quantities, leading to customer complaints [as it sometimes happened in the past],” Bösch explained.
The integrated network combined with the pick-by-voice system enables the ability to speak directly to a warehouse operative, guide him or her, and confirm his/her actions back to the warehouse management system (WMS) during times when receiving, picking up, processing and preparing shipment of stock orders.
The Meru’s WLAN technology will be helping the warehouse workers and the order pickers that will be instructed, by voice via the headset, on what to pick and where to pick it. Such a simple exchange of voice commands is able to greatly enhance the efficiency of the BÄKO depot, especially to reduce packing order errors.
For a company like BÄKO, which is said to be “committed to efficiency in operations to benefit its customers,” seeking help from Meru has resulted in a solution that has proved to be a superb fit to BÄKO’s central warehouse processes requirements; furthermore, it has helped to deliver clients optimal customer service in the end, said Tabatha von Kölichen, sales manager for the DACH region at Meru.
Edited by Ryan Sartor