Appleby Westward Ltd Invests in BCP's Accord Voice WMS

UK Grocery wholesaler, Appleby Westward Group Ltd (AWG), is investing almost £200,000 in BCP's Accord™ Voice Recognition technology for its ambient goods distribution centre (RDC) at Saltash in Cornwall.

Stockport, UK (PRWeb) November 25, 2006 -- UK Grocery wholesaler, Appleby Westward Group Ltd (AWG), is investing almost £200,000 in BCP's Accord™ Voice Recognition technology for its ambient goods distribution centre (RDC) at Saltash in Cornwall.

AWG is one of the top 20 UK grocery delivered wholesalers with turnover exceeding £140m. As part of the BWG Food Group and SPAR food distributor for the South and West of England, AWG services some 400 SPAR, independent and NAAFI stores across the region as well as exporting to NAAFI stores around the world. It operates from two main RDCs - Saltash in Cornwall, which handles all ambient goods, and a smaller depot in Cullompton, Devon, for chilled and frozen foods.

BCP is one of the UK's top suppliers of specialist Supply Chain solutions to the Food and Drink Wholesale and Retail Distribution industry with key clients including SPAR, Woodward Foodservice, BWG and Musgrave.

The investment in Voice encompasses BCP's complete Accord Voice Directed Picking solution, operating with the latest Vocollect Talkman T5 terminals on a Symbol Technologies Spread Spectrum 24 RF network. It replaces a paper based 'pick by label' system and, when fully implemented, will be used by 32 pickers at the Saltash RDC. Supply chain specialist, BCP, is supplying the full solution, including all hardware, software and services, and is working with AWG's specially appointed in-house Voice implementation team to install it as a phased implementation

The first phase - for bulk picking - went live in September, following a comprehensive pilot in a section of the department earlier in the summer, with the second phase - for picking in the Wines and Spirits, Tobacco, Pharmacy and Cake departments of the main warehouse - going live at the end of October. By Christmas all ambient picking should be handled by Voice.

Voice Technology transforms the way warehouse operators work: eliminating the need for hand-held devices or paper instructions frees up both hands and eyes for the task, allowing operators to work faster and safer; substituting manual entry of data with verbal instructions and verification eliminates errors and saves time.

It's early days yet, but productivity and accuracy improvements from Voice are already coming through and, as Phil Brewer, AWG Operations & IT Director, explains: "We expect these to be more dramatic as picking in the main warehouse converts to Voice and operators have to pick splits and singles as well as cases and pallets."

Moreover, pickers, initially a little sceptical about the new technology, have adapted to it quickly, finding it simple to learn and adopt. Phil Brewer: "Pickers really like the new technology and they're now keen to extend it to other aspects of warehouse work as they have found it makes their jobs much easier."

In the longer term AWG hopes to extend Voice to other areas of warehouse activity, possibly starting with Goods Receiving in the New Year, after the busy Christmas period. As Phil Brewer explains: "We'll continue with a phased implementation as this is working very well, allowing us to transfer seamlessly to Voice and to handle on-going training in house."

As a technology innovator, BCP are at the forefront when it comes to applying new technologies to the Food Industry Supply Chain. Aware of the immense potential of Voice Technology, BCP have paid careful attention to the way they have developed their Voice enabled WMS to make its benefits available to as wide a market as possible. It can be deployed as a standalone WMS to interface to other Order Processing and Stock systems, as discrete Voice modules to interface to third party WMS or, like the implementation at AWG, as part of a fully integrated Accord supply chain solution.

For further information please contact Pauline Higgs at BCP:

T: +44 (0)161 355 3000

F: +44 (0)161 355 3001

W: http://www.bcpsoftware.com

Notes for the editor

About BCP - http://www.bcpsoftware.com

Founded in 1979, Business Computer Projects Ltd (BCP) is a leading systems house specialising in supply chain solutions. Our Accord® systems offer end-to-end, web enabled supply chain solutions for delivered wholesale, cash & carry and retail distribution. Dedicated versions are available for the food and drink sector where we are regarded as one of the market leaders.

All our systems have been developed using Progress 4GL ensuring they are user friendly and easy to tailor, with powerful, flexible reporting and management information facilities. Their OpenEdge(TM) architecture makes them suitable for use on a wide range of platforms, giving clients maximum choice and flexibility in hardware and operating system platform selection and allowing easy integration with many other technologies, such as .NET, Java and Web Services.

As a technology innovator, BCP systems are in the forefront when it comes to applying new technologies to the Food Industry Supply Chain. Recently these include Voice technology in the warehouse, using Web Services and EDI-INT for Supply Chain Integration and keeping abreast of new developments in the industry, such as "Chip and Pin". We also operate a number of managed services for our clients, including AIMS (Accord Internet Messaging Service) for passing information reliably and securely between sites, an EFT Bureau and an EDI Bureau.

BCP clients include SPAR, Musgrave, BWG, Woodward Food Service, Pets at Home, William Morrison Supermarkets, Pedigree Wholesale.

About Appleby Westward Group Ltd - http://www.swspar.com

For further information or photographs, please contact Pauline Higgs at BCP:

Tel: +44 (0)161 355 3000; Fax: +44 (0)161 355 3001

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