Famifarm Ltd has been a pioneer in building the Finnish potted salad and herb market for decades. The first salads were introduced to stores under the Järvikylä brand in 1987. Over the years, the product range has gradually expanded, bringing new exotic flavors and nuances to Finnish dining tables.
Today, the salads and herbs grown with care and love in Järvikylä greenhouses in Joroinen are likely familiar to almost every Finn. Now, they are being picked and delivered all over Finland using Devoca’s Talk’nPick voice picking solution.
Moving away from paper-based picking lists
Famifarm’s warehouse in Joroinen dispatches several truckloads of salads and herbs daily to both larger and smaller stores. There are over 50 product names and hundreds of order lines processed daily. A change was sought from the paper-based solution that would be comprehensive yet cost-effective.
With Talk’nPick, order lines can now be processed in a mobile multimodal manner, especially leveraging voice picking in Famifarm’s warehouse. Paper-based picking lists are no longer needed, and pickers have both hands free to gather herbs and salads from the shelves.
Voice picking benefits
Voice picking brings benefits to the picking process in many ways. Work becomes smoother as the picker read information from paper or a screen; instead, they receive the necessary instructions through voice guidance in their headphones. The picker can confirm the gathered products and quantities through speech into their headphones. With voice guidance, the picker’s movement is continuous, making the process smoother throughout the entire round.
The number of errors decreases, picking speed increases, and ergonomics improve, as using voice picking leaves the picker with two hands free for gathering products.
Voice picking makes the picking process more efficient and error-free.
Heard from Picker’s perspective
The adoption of voice picking has been revolutionary. Pickers agree: ”It’s faster to pick with voice than with traditional paper.” This translates to a smoother work pace and increased efficiency in the picking process.
Furthermore, both hands are free, enabling easy handling of products and lifting of boxes without interruptions. Pickers report that this freedom has made the work more enjoyable and ergonomic.
Errors have significantly decreased. Orders no longer go missing, as the mobile and Tools applications always keep the information intact. This adds reliability and accuracy to the entire collection process.
Heard from Management
Management also observes changes in operations. The speeding up of palletization has been significant compared to traditional manual methods. Additionally, errors in recording pallet quantities for transport orders have clearly decreased.
Using the Tools application, additional orders can be added quickly and effortlessly to already palletized work. Saved customer-specific information reduces the need for memorization, and all necessary information is always available.
In the Overview of Tools functions, it is clear that managing pickers’ tasks and workload has become easy and transparent. Any picker can take on a task assigned to a specific collector, increasing flexibility and efficiency.
Additional benefits that have not gone unnoticed
Voice picking allows for more precise pallet tracking, including details and quantities of different pallet models.
Employee-specific data, such as quantities picked and time spent, provides more visibility and efficiency in the work process. Additionally, the automatic saving of new products to Tools speeds up daily operations.
Overall, voice picking has brought immense efficiency and reliability to warehouse management. Both collectors and management report clear improvements in the process compared to previous manual methods.
