Voice at the Crossroads

Voice at the Crossroads

How VoiceLogistics Pro™ is Revolutionizing
the Delivery of
Voice-Driven Logistics Solutions

Executive Summary

The business value of voice-enabled warehousing operations is now well established. As a wave of mass adoption gets seriously underway, logistics executives are looking beyond immediate cost/benefit ratios to the longer-term consequences of the decision to implement voice.

As is often the case with breakthrough technologies, those who pioneered voice paid a hefty premium. Early voice adopters had to settle for high-cost, proprietary systems with closed architectures. Solutions were “change-resistant,” turning simple changes to operations or application upgrades into high-cost endeavors that necessitated going back to the voice recognition technology vendor for services.

In a competitive industry that rewards agility, nimbleness, and efficiency, logistics executives need voice solutions that are configurable, adaptable, and scalable. They need voice solutions that can easily evolve along with their operations, and do so with a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

The high cost of pioneering is not unique to voice – it is common with all new technologies. But as always, mass adoption is fueled by advances in the core technology needed by the broader market:

Standards emerge, which reduce the risk and cost of proprietary solutions.
Key industry players adopt the standards, thus providing flexibility of choice while driving down cost.
Solution providers use the standards to rapidly deliver solutions that are tailored to an operation’s requirements yet amenable to growth and change.

Today the voice industry for logistics is at the inevitable crossroads between the closed, tightly-coupled systems of the past and the open, adaptable solutions of the future. Leading the way is Voxware’s VoiceLogistics Pro™, the only VoiceXML-based solution for the logistics industry that is fully configurable, adaptable, and scalable.

This paper will explain what’s wrong with the traditional approach to implementing voice in the warehouse. It will then show how VoiceLogistics Pro revolutionizes the industry by delivering complete solutions without a full-scale programming effort, and how it provides customers with more strategic options, greater adaptability, and a lower overall TCO.

Adaptability in Logistics Operations – a Strategic Requirement

With logistics performance as a competitive lynchpin for many industries, logistics and IT executives increasingly collaborate on strategies to reduce logistics cost as a percent of corporate revenue, while achieving ever-higher quality and efficiency in operations.

Inside the warehouse, where much of the logistics spend occurs, key metrics such as velocity, accuracy, on-time shipments, returns, and labor productivity are relentlessly tracked. Seemingly small improvements to the operation can telescope into major savings that drop straight to the bottom line.

Against this backdrop, voice in the warehouse has quickly evolved from an experimental technology to an industry best practice. By enabling workers to do their jobs with hands and eyes free, voice technology boosts productivity, eliminates mistakes, and collapses the costly training period for new employees.

But the best warehousing operations do not sit still; they are constantly evolving and changing. They are always, to some degree, a “work in progress.” Any number of business or system changes can impact the operation:

New or upgraded WMS or ERP systems are implemented, necessitating new interfaces and changes to the operational control systems.
The company launches new products that cannot be received, put away, picked and loaded using the same techniques as existing products.
The warehouse must implement new receiving, put away and picking processes to adhere to regulations, necessitating a change in the existing operational workflow.

In such a dynamic environment, adaptability of systems and operations becomes a key need and even a competitive advantage. Yet there is often a critical delay from approval to implementation of operational upgrades.

Why? Because the technology infrastructure conspires to prevent business agility rather than enable it. Often, the process of coordinating upgrades to applications, interfaces, and hardware just takes too long and costs too much.

What does this have to do with voice technology? Everything. Warehouse workers are the last ones to touch products before they go out the door. Their responsibility is immense. The voice software that directs warehouse workers must tie directly into applications that manage inventory and key logistics processes. If the voice system is closed and tightly-coupled, then changes will incur longer lead times and higher costs, and the voice system will fail the adaptability test.

The Problem with Traditional Voice Solutions

Traditional voice systems deserve credit for opening up a new market niche and proving the value of voice in the warehouse. But they are not adaptable, which is a huge long-term liability for customers.

Traditional voice solutions involve some combination of proprietary hardware, closed software architectures, and tightly-coupled, hard-coded interfaces to operational systems. They do not take advantage of advancements in web-based technology that, over the past decade, have greatly improved the way flexible solutions are architected and delivered.

Traditional voice systems were designed to work with a specific vendor’s hardware products. Although recently some of these solutions have been ported to alternative hardware platforms, it is vital to remember that (A) any voice company that manufactures hardware has a strong motivation to induce customers and partners to choose its own equipment, and (B) any dated, closed, proprietary software architecture drags its disadvantages along when ported to a different client device!

Traditional voice solutions must be programmed at a very detailed, low level. Often this process requires the use of the vendor’s proprietary scripting language or code generator, which produces modules that conform to an older monolithic technology. This situation leads to a number of difficulties:

Sophisticated solutions often require further modification of the generated code. As soon as the generated code is modified, it can no longer be maintained using the code generator tool, which makes maintenance and enhancement of the solution extremely time-consuming and expensive.
Server-side connections to WMS and other systems are low-level, API-based implementations created by programming instead of using a high-level integration tool. Thus, whenever a new WMS module or upgrade is released, the voice system must be updated through a costly, labor-intensive process of coding, testing and debugging.
The closed nature of the architecture means that certain changes can require the direct involvement of the voice company. When this happens, solution providers and partners cannot operate independently, which adds expense and retards progress while the voice company aligns its schedule with the needs of the customer.
Because the architecture is tightly-coupled, applications on the client tend to be “fat client” oriented, with substantial, hard-coded duplication of logic between the voice interface and the WMS or warehouse control system.
A holistic approach to creating and coordinating the server-side and client-side workflow does not exist – other than through the use of brute-force programming.

While this list of problems may seem arcane, it exposes the big disadvantage of traditional voice solutions. Projects to deliver a unique solution (or to change it in some way later on) always involve a substantial programming effort, often requiring the direct participation of the voice company, which translates into higher cost over the life of the voice system.

Such an approach is understandable in the infancy of a new technology, when pioneers are getting their jump on the rest of the market. But mass adopters will demand a more adaptable approach, with flexibility of choice and a lower-cost maintenance profile.

Modern Voice Solutions: a Wish List

Software is the key to configurability, adaptability, and scalability. That’s why software vendors will lead the next generation of voice solutions for logistics.

If the problems described above are hallmarks of traditional voice implementations, then what should solution providers and end customers be looking for in a truly modern voice solution? Of course, there are the obvious basics:

Proven track record in the warehouse with thousands of users deployed.
Ability to achieve near-perfect voice recognition in noisy, demanding industrial settings and operate in multiple languages.
Ability to use voice to improve warehouse operations.

But this essentially gives us parity with traditional systems – what is the “wish list” of qualities that distinguish a modern voice solution from the older approach?

Standards-based, with an emphasis on the modern IT technology stack of Internet-oriented standards such as:
VoiceXML Browser for the voice interface
HTTP for communication between the VoiceXML Browser and the server
Java and Java Messaging for server-side message handling
Web service architecture for direct-connect to WMS packages
Endorsement by major auto-ID equipment manufacturers and support of the open voice architecture in an increasing array of their devices.
The ability to configure solutions without programming.
A building-block approach with a visual studio for assembling solutions quickly.
A graphic, visual tool that enables users to define, map, and transport data between the voice interface and the WMS or back-end system without resorting to a traditional programming effort.
An architecture where change is anticipated and the voice solution is able to respond quickly to new requirements in operational systems or processes.
Complete independence: No need for the solution provider or customer to involve the voice company directly in major changes or upgrades.

VoiceLogistics Pro – Revolutionizing the Industry

VoiceLogistics Pro is a software product suite that leverages open Internet-based standards to deliver voice solutions that are configurable, adaptable, and scalable.

VoiceLogistics Pro takes the design and development of voice interfaces to a whole new level of ease. It enables voice solutions to be prototyped and delivered in days rather than months, and allows for the rapid extension and change of solutions after implementation. Fully independent of client platform, database, and operating system, VoiceLogistics Pro gives customers a wide array of choices while providing the lowest TCO in the industry.

Four major components of VoiceLogistics Pro’s architecture are:

VoxStudio: The visual tool used to design and implement a voice solution. Instead of a labor-intensive programming activity, voice solutions are configured visually from building blocks and assembled into an operational voice interface.
VoxConnect: The graphic tool for defining, mapping, and transporting data between the WMS or back-end system and the voice interface.
VoxConsole: The browser-based application that supports the operations management, system administration, and reporting functions inherent to a voice solution.
VoxBrowser: The client-side module is an Internet browser that uses a voice recognition interface instead of a traditional keyboard and mouse. Packaged with Voxware’s patented VISE™ speech recognition engine and utilizing VoiceXML standards, the VoxBrowser makes possible voice solutions that are highly scalable and take advantage of the open, flexible and loosely-coupled nature of today’s modern Internet-based applications.

Here is how VoiceLogistics Pro satisfies the “wish list” for modern voice solutions.

VoiceLogistics Pro is open. It fully embraces the Internet standards that have been adopted by today’s business enterprises: VoiceXML, HTTP, Java, Internet browser, and Web server technologies. This means that solutions are loosely coupled yet scalable, with client devices always fully independent of the server.
Why is openness important? It is one key to lower TCO. It yields greater flexibility of choice, allowing customers to “invest once” yet operate voice solutions on a wide number of hardware platforms, operating systems, back-end applications and databases.
VoiceLogistics Pro is configurable. Solutions are assembled using components that contain dozens of built-in parameters. Solutions can be created and prototyped by operations or business consultants working directly with customers, instead of programmers working in a back room.
Why is configurability important? It is another key to lowering TCO because expensive programming projects can be reduced or eliminated. In addition, it enables solutions to be tailored to the specific operational requirements of different customers. This also ensures that a previously implemented voice solution can be quickly reconfigured to adapt to changing business conditions at the warehouse.
The “building block” architecture of VoiceLogistics Pro means that it is already designed to support growth and change. This is the huge drawback of traditional voice systems that use coding and code generators: every new requirement means more code and more bolt-on modules which are expensive to service. With VoiceLogistics Pro, new options and new building blocks are simply introduced into the existing architecture, greatly reducing the time-to-market of new capabilities while simplifying customer support and maintenance.
VoiceLogistics Pro is adaptable. Most operations or system changes are a big, expensive exercise with traditional voice systems. But with VoiceLogistics Pro such changes are an order of magnitude easier.
VoxStudio and VoxConnect allow for adaptation of voice to new applications without programming. The use of building block components with configurable parameters makes VoiceLogistics Pro quickly adaptable to new requirements. For truly unique needs, defined user exit points are available in each component, permitting solution providers to create tailor-made functions that operate as part of the overall architecture and not as a bolt-on module. User exits are constructed using the same Internet standards as VoiceLogistics Pro, making it easy for vendors to provide customization services.
VoiceLogistics Pro incorporates a visual studio. Solution architects or business consultants are able to work with customers at the workflow level, visually representing the workflow of the WMS or operational system, and quickly implementing voice solutions – which can be exercised right away for immediate customer feedback. This approach is highly productive and eradicates the mystery behind voice solutions. This level of activity is simply not possible with traditional systems that have no visual studio and workflow capability.
VoiceLogistics Pro includes a graphical tool for WMS connectivity. VoxConnect provides a simple, high-level tool to define, map and transport data elements required for the voice/WMS interface. Its light-footprint Web server motif enables direct connection to WMS applications. It is very easy to support multiple versions of a WMS and to connect to disparate back-end systems. Customers can upgrade operations on their timetable instead of waiting for (and often paying) the voice company to code yet another interface.
Auto-ID manufacturers are supporting VoiceLogistics Pro’s VoxBrowser. The VoxBrowser is Voxware’s open, VoiceXML-based software product that runs on the client device and is used by VoiceLogistics Pro in implementing voice solutions.
Major manufacturers of wireless devices for the warehouse, such as LXE and Symbol, have worked with Voxware to certify their devices for operation with VoxBrowser and recommend them for their customers. With more manufacturers and devices running VoxBrowser, customers can leverage strategic supplier relationship and enjoy a wider array of choices for voice deployment than is provided by any other voice company.

Conclusion

The first generation of voice solutions for logistics was characterized by proprietary, closed systems and very-tightly coupled voice interfaces. These systems relied heavily on expensive programming projects to tailor voice solutions for a given customer, WMS, or back-end application. They were high-TCO solutions, great for pioneering users who were willing to invest in expensive custom programming projects in order to be the first to reap the benefits of voice technology.

Today, the needs of the market are different. The crucial requirements in voice are for configurability, adaptability, and scalability.

Customers want flexibility and freedom of choice. They want lower TCO alternatives. And, they want solutions that fit within the modern IT technology stack already adopted by their companies.

VoiceLogistics Pro from Voxware is leading a new generation of voice solutions into the logistics market. VoiceLogistics Pro redefines how voice solutions are created and delivered, and provides customers with the ability to respond quickly to change and make voice a strong part of their competitive logistics advantage.

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