For nearly 20 years, the technology of communicating with employees via an interactive computerized voice has been more of a promise than a reality. That is, until a few years ago.

A combination of improvements in speech recognition capability, more creative scripting and continuous cost reduction has propelled voice into the forefront of orderpicking technology. But, maybe more than anything, the popularity of personal music players and hands-free cell phones has made wearing headsets acceptable—even cool.

It's easy to see the obvious advantage of having both hands free to pick and palletize cases at each picking location. This has made the technology very attractive to those in heavy case picking environments, notably, the grocery industry. Additionally, the freedom of moving on to the next task without having to stop and consult a small screen on a hand-held terminal adds to mobility by letting the picker continue to focus on the job at hand.

I have always thought that a great feature of voice technology is the way that it keeps an operator focused on the task. Although, the operator sets his or her own pace, the voice response is so fast that it seems to expect immediate action. I have not seen any pickers object to this sense of urgency. On the contrary, they seem eager to move up to the "expert mode," where they are able to short-cut some of the instructions because they know what the next expected reply is.

We have become accustomed to using bar code scanning to confirm that the picker is in the expected location, or is selecting the correct product. Scanning can also be used in conjunction with voice. But, I see operators comfortably read out the last four digits of the UPC code on an item as they were passing it from the pick face to the shipping carton—effectively doing two tasks at the same time.

At first, I thought that the applications for voice technology would be limited to case picking. However, I recently watched it being used very effectively for piece picking.

No specific zones need to be defined. Two operators can work very close to one another without interference. An order can be easily passed from one picker to another with only a couple of simple voice commands.

Traditionally, we have been able to afford light-directed picking for only the fastest moving stock keeping units, which are good candidates for picking from carton flow rack. Voice, on the other hand, can be used to direct picking for all of the products, regardless of how many. Costs are driven by the number of pickers, not the number of products.

In a freezer environment, voice eliminates the clumsy task of confirming tasks with a gloved hand on a tiny keyboard. And, when it's time to rearrange racks, reconfiguring the system is a breeze.

I'm sure that voice is not right for every application, but I will be looking hard for more places to use its special capabilities.