Question

OM in the News: “Alexa, Manage My Warehouse" MAY 8, 2019 by Barry Render tags: Alexa, Amazon, Echo, voice technology, warehouses As e-commerce order volume continues spiraling upwards while delivery windows shrink, warehouse workers need innovations to meet picking, packing and shipping goals, writes Supply Chain Dive (April 30, 2019). Speech recognition software and voice-directed applications have been used in warehouses since the late 1990s. Even with continued technological advancements, though, adoption is still relatively EL low. About a quarter of warehouses use voice directed picking. Traditional voice-directed technologies with headsets and microphones are one solution. New uses of current voice technologies, like Alexa, are another. Millennial workers are tech-savvy and like incorporating technology in their jobs. They're used to smart speakers with consumer applications like Google Home and Amazon's Echo and Alexa, and the voice systems have similarities. Efficiency is important because individual customers and businesses expect their products to arrive more quickly than in the past. And there's an increased number of small orders. Instead of a business receiving cases of product on a full or mixed pallet once a week, they're getting multiple orders per week with individual products. Those moving to voice-directed technology are often changing from hand-held radio frequency scanning devices. In doing so, they decrease the picking steps in the workflow from 9 steps to around 5 per pick With spoken commands, there's no need to hold a device, which must be put down during the picks. Workers no longer need to look at the device screen and use the keyboard to input or find information. The picks are more accurate because the voice system confirms the picker is at the right location and picked the right items. It increases productivity by 30-45%.

Answer 1

Q1) The metro e-commerce centers differ from the company’s regional distribution centers for store fulfillment as they’re much closer to customers’ homes and are able to service next-day orders. They also help with delivering bulky appliances to shoppers’ houses — something Best Buy is doing on a daily basis with its massive appliance business.

Q2) Best Buy found logistics system integrator Bastian Solutions, coupled with AutoStore—a bin storage system in which bins are stacked vertically in a grid and retrieved by robots that travel on the top layer of the system—to overhaul its distribution centers. The process took about 12 months to implement, but the retailer declined to provide specifics of costs or when it started using the new system.

At each of Best Buy’s three metro e-commerce centers, the retailer now has 30,000 bins and 73 robots. Best Buy delivers about 30-40% of a store’s inventory from its metro e-commerce centers and segregates store delivery by aisle. At Best Buy’s regional distribution centers—located in San Francisco, Atlanta and Findlay, Ohio—Bastian and AutoStore outfitted the centers with 150,000 bins and 195 robots.

Now, the Best Buy's fulfillment system is partly automated, whereas amazon's is manual.

Q3) Main advantages of voice systems in warehouse pickings are:

• 1) Improve Order Picking Efficiency
• 2) Increase Order Accuracy
• 3) Save Time on Training
• 4) Easy Integration with Existing Systems