01/10/2009

By Scott Thompson

Bookpoint is to install voice technology from VoiteQ, incorporating a voice-directed work solution from Vocollect.

Following the success of its voice-directed order picking solution at Littlehampton Book Services (LBS) last year, the Hachette Group (HLUK) has decided to move ahead with a roll-out at Bookpoint. The first phase of the implementation focuses on one specific contract with an educational book publisher, a complex pick of books stored in 'library style' (books on shelves on their ends), picked by shelf and then by individual book. The second phase will involve the implementation across the entire Bookpoint business, including the remainder of stock in the library format. The solution will replace the company's existing paper-based picking with description based picking on conveyors. The operator is directed to the appropriate book and confirms their selection by stating the last digits of the book's ISBN code. Once the selection is verified, the system states the quantity of the specific book that is required.

Graham Money, general manager at Bookpoint, says: "With this implementation we were confident of the benefits that voice could provide, due to the similarities in the solution required for both LBS and Bookpoint. The increase in accuracy was again key to the success of this project, and we are confident we will repeat the success achieved in LBS where we have managed to increase our pick rate on this very complex library style pick to 80 lines per man hour, purely due to the productivity gain that voice has produced."