Lydia® speaks for all industries

The Arvato SCM Solutions division is part of Arvato, a leading international services company that operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann. Arvato's approximately 70,000 employees design and create innovative solutions for customers around the world. Arvato SCM Solutions' logistics services include warehouse management, order picking, distribution and transport management for customers from a wide range of industries. Arvato SCM Solutions relies on the voice-guided order picking system Lydia® for efficient process handling. Arvato relies on this voice solution in a total of nine European projects from various industries. "We use the Lydia® Voice Suite for our customers in both management of returned goods and order picking. We were impressed in particular by the direct connection of the system to SAP, which we take over ourselves as a service provider for our customers," says Sabine Evers, Expert Logistics Planning at Arvato.

SAP connection without middleware

A special requirement of the service company was the possibility of self-management and adaptation of voice commands in the voice dialog. Thanks to the certified Lydia® Connector for SAP, the Pick-by-Voice solution can be easily integrated into the ERP system operating in the background without additional middleware. The logic of the voice dialog is completely in the SAP system, which also controls the distribution of orders. Both replenishment control and all process-relevant picking steps are transferred from the leading ERP system via the voice system to the employee during order processing and are reported back to the merchandise management system. "Since we support customers from a wide variety of industries in logistics, we need a flexible pick-by-voice system that can be tailored precisely to the requirements of the industry," Evers makes it clear. Thanks to the direct SAP connection of the Lydia® Voice Suite, Arvato has access to the voice dialogs at all times and can reprogram them independently during process modifications. In order to optimally equip warehouse processes individually and for customers, the supply chain service provider Arvato also relies on the innovative power of the pick-by-voice solution in the further development of processes.

Perfect team player: Voxter® and Voxter® Scan Elite Edition

"Especially in the classic B2B business for one of our electronics customers, Lydia® also helps us to absorb seasonal peaks," Evers continues. "In wholesale distribution for discounters and electronics stores, there are many returns due to market conditions. This calls for efficient processes and a system with which even new employees and seasonal workers can support us immediately without long training phases". The Lydia® Voice Suite is used in the version with the mobile Voxter® voice computer and the Voxter® Scan Elite Edition back hand scanner from topsystem. This combination has already significantly increased the efficiency of order picking processes for several customers from the high-tech and entertainment segment, including at the Gütersloh site in Germany. From there, Arvato SCM Solutions supplies the companies' wholesale customers throughout Europe with DVDs and Bluray discs. So that no time is lost in the order picking process, the employees work with the pick-and-pack procedure. The order pickers complete the individual items requested via voice with a scan of the goods before they are packed in the shipping box on the trolley and then sent. Returning goods require an equally sophisticated system: in returns management, the Lydia® Voice Suite controls the sorting of incoming items. Via Put-by-Voice, employees receive information on where to return the DVDs and Blu-ray discs before they are returned to the warehouse.

Positive conclusion

"By using the Lydia® Voice Suite we benefit from a higher process reliability in the material flow. The aim is to guarantee our customers highly efficient complete logistics processing," Evers continues. "Lydia's comprehensive range can be used in all industries and can be flexibly adapted to processes as required. Further advantages for the e-commerce and supply chain service provider are the speaker independence of the system and the wide range of languages available.