Honeywell > Case Studies > Sensing and Productivity Solutions: 3663 and Vocollect—Food for Thought

Sensing and Productivity Solutions: 3663 and Vocollect—Food for Thought

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

Europe

Country

United Kingdom

Product

Vocollect Voice Directed Distribution
Manhattan Associates’ WMOS

Tech Stack

Voice Technology
Warehouse Management System (WMS)
Real-time Productivity Status Reporting

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Customer Satisfaction
Employee Satisfaction

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems

Applicable Industries

Food & Beverage

Applicable Functions

Warehouse & Inventory Management
Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Warehouse Automation
Fleet Management

Services

System Integration
Training

About The Customer

3663 supplies a wide choice of foods and commercial kitchen equipment to all areas of the foodservice market. They deliver frozen, fresh, chilled, non-food, and catering equipment products to a range of customers, from small independents to large national accounts. With 23 depots and 4 regional distribution centres spread throughout the UK, 3663 is the UK’s leading foodservice company with sales of over £1.6 billion a year, delivering quality ingredients, finished products, and equipment to the catering industry. 3663 has over 4,200 employees and a modern fleet of 800 temperature-controlled vehicles, making an average of 45,000 deliveries a week to their customer base which includes Burger King, KFC, and Nandos. The management team at 3663 is always looking for new ways of improving operational performance, with the aim of increasing profitability while continuing to deliver outstanding customer service.

The Challenge

With an entire supply chain relying on its operations, time is of the essence for 3663’s Logistics division. The division has a long-standing commitment to moving goods to the right place at the right time without incident or error. For the business to sustain increased growth and profitability, 3663 could not afford unexpected costs such as sending out half-empty lorries or high levels of inaccurate selection. In addition to accuracy, productivity and speed are of vital importance to the company’s profit margins. The more products the company can move in a day, the greater the increase in revenue, so having a focused approach to ensuring processes are not duplicated needlessly is essential. In their quest for logistics excellence, 3663 turned the spotlight on the company’s long-standing, paper-driven processes to see how voice technology could help to increase accuracy, speed up order selection, gain better visibility of stock, streamline processes and make the best possible use of its workforce.

The Solution

To meet its needs, 3663’s warehouse operations chose Vocollect’s Voice Directed Distribution in conjunction with the Manhattan Associates’ WMOS. This facilitated order verification very early upstream, as soon as the article is picked, not just on the basis of its location in the warehouse. 3663 approached one of Vocollect’s certified partners to roll out a fully integrated Warehouse Management System (WMS) driven by Vocollect Voice across four logistics depots: Banbury; Litchfield; Royton and Heywood. The Vocollect Voice application allowed employees on the ground to move stock more quickly and accurately through all stages of the warehouse cycle. The distribution centre employees wear a lightweight Vocollect wearable mobile computing device and headset, allowing them to work Hands-Free, Eyes-Free in a safer environment. The previous process was very complex, running almost entirely on a paper-based system, supported by manual control processes. Now, the WMS incorporates a voice management console, providing the business units with a unified overview of all processes in real-time throughout the day – allowing faster response times, the ability to spot variances in performance and better planning and reporting.

Operational Impact

Since the installation of the system, 3663 has seen accuracy increase to near 100 percent and order selection rates up by 30 percent.
The management team has benefited from a heightened level of control that has allowed the business to focus on core activities and to plan more effectively.
Having access to real-time productivity status reporting has yielded complete knowledge and traceability for its processes and goods, more effective training and increased staff retention rates.
Vocollect’s Voice-Directed Distribution system at 3663 was the UK’s first end-to-end voice application. It has made a huge impact on 3663’s business by delivering an organically developed system that meets the precise needs of the organisation.
Increases in visibility, traceability and productivity have all boosted the company’s profit margins, while delivering superior customer service which for 3663 is the most important aspect.

Quantitative Benefit