Challenged to find a way to retain loyal workers and start up a new distribution centre, Unilever Greece turned a difficult situation to their advantage, using the popular, next generation, ZetesMedea voice picking solution.

A double mission

The economic situation in Greece pushed forced many companies, includinglike Unilever, to make bold tough operational choices. In December 2011, having decided to shut down a manufacturing plant, Unilever was concerned about laying-off the workers involved. As the company was also opening a big distribution centre in Schimatari, they chose to transfer to bring in those workers as pickers into the new warehouse and become pickers. 

The challenge then for Unilever faced a double challenge was twofold. Not only did they need a quality logistics solution , able to integrate directly with the new warehouse’s core ERP system SAP. They also had to consider that it would be operated by people with no technology or picking experience . Following an intensive extensive research and selection process, Unilever chose to implement the ZetesMedea voice picking solution .

George Baglatzis, Zetes Greece: "The challenge then for Unilever was twofold: the voice solution needed to integrate directly with SAP and it had to be easily useable for unexperienced pickers."

Voice: benchmark picking technology

ZetesMedea logistics execution solution, allows to optimise all warehouse processes. Product movements are registered from goods receiving to truck loading, through picking and replenishment, offering real-time visibility and enabling therefore enhanced critical decision making. Not only does the number of data input errors dramatically decrease , warehouse operators also can work more efficiently, as they are fully more task focused on their tasks. ZetesMedea integrates the latest data capture technologies such as barcode, RFID, voice and ImageID. In Unilever’s case, the choice for voice was justified by the fact that the process required to optimise was picking, where voice has proven to offer many advantages. Zetes’ voice picking solution is powered by MCLvoice, developed by MCL Technologies.

Rapid implementation of 1 month

The solution was implemented in just one month . Using SAP’s standard integration options, an advantage of the solution was that it eliminated the need for any intermediate. Direct SAP integration also allowed Unilever to keep all store business critical business data in one location, with the voice devices managed and the individual operator sessions tracked directly by existing SAP tools.

Easy to operate from the outset

Available in 20 languages , ZetesMedea voice picking adapts to suit all users. It has two voice dialogue levels: a starter level with comprehensive instructions and an experienced level where commands are shortened. Data input can be voice only or combined with touch screen, keyboard or scanner devices. Due to operators inexperience, Unilever opted for voice only and the ‘untrained’ approach, enabling phonetic recognition of complete spoken words. With no need to save voice profiles, workers were operational in no time.

Productivity, accuracy & efficiency gains

In days, all of the operators successfully adapted to working with the voice devices as a highly productive, efficient picking team. Today the team has grown, with newcomers picking up the system in hours . Unilever now intends to implement the same solution at another distribution centre they are being developed. 

George Baglatzis of Zetes in Greece Hellas concludes: “ Zetes’ approach to voice is to offer as much flexibility as possible. The untrained approach chosen by Unilever presents illustrates the advantage of making unexperienced inexperienced users operational and efficient in no time. This has allowed Unilever to save jobs but is also a useful feature for companies which that have to deal with peak times periods, for during which they need to hire people for only a short period of time only. By saving training time, they become more competitive .”