FIRST SITE FOR NEW VOCOLLECT VOICE PRODUCT OFFERING NETS MAJOR PAYBACKS IN ACCURACY, ROI AND COST SAVINGS
PITTSBURGH – Sept. 26, 2007 – Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work, announced today that Glidewell Distributing Co., a privately-owned company serving the food and retail industries, has successfully implemented Vocollect VoiceLink 3.0 at its distribution center in Fort Smith, Ark. In a deployment beginning in March, this first customer to use VoiceLink 3.0 has improved order accuracy, increased worker speed and reduced training time.
When Glidewell Distributing expanded its business with an acquisition in October 2005, the company was using a paper-based order selection process. At that time, the company needed to fulfill more than 800 orders that were delivered each day through 14 routes across Arkansas and Oklahoma. With the growing pains of a greatly increased order load, the last thing Glidewell Distributing wanted was for service to suffer. “Vocollect Voice and VoiceLink 3.0 not only improved our customer service, they also have provided an impressive return on investment in less than nine months,” said Nick Glidewell, director of sales at Glidewell Distributing. “Our order accuracy has improved from 99.03 percent to 99.66 percent, and we have documented labor and store credit savings that total almost $275,000 annually.”
“In addition, we’ve eliminated order checkers, reduced product ‘shorts’ and reduced training from one to two days to just one hour. While we had some initial concern about the affordability of voice for a company of our size, it soon became clear that the scalability of Vocollect architecture would quickly conform to our business needs,” said Glidewell.
The company worked with Speech Interface Design, an industrial speech recognition solutions supplier, to select and install VoiceLink 3.0. The middleware application from Vocollect combines open source technology – the Vocollect Voice Integration Platform – with industry-leading voice applications to drive process improvements for both operations and information technology departments.
Vocollect Voice and VoiceLink 3.0 provide Glidewell Distributing with an infrastructure to achieve consistent task execution, thus vastly reducing costly truck runs to deliver “missed” products after the initial delivery. In addition, VoiceLink 3.0 allows supervisors to proactively manage orders and take action on order “shorts” just seconds after discovered, rather than at the end of an assignment – ultimately ensuring on-time, accurate deliveries.
“With Vocollect Voice and VoiceLink 3.0, our customers can be certain of our ability to deliver the highest value for their investment in Voice-Directed Work,” said Jack LeVan, Vocollect chief executive officer. “As the market and innovation leader in applying voice to improve work in the global supply chain and beyond, we are always building new applications that deliver maximum ROI, improve user satisfaction and safety, and increase productivity.”
About Vocollect
Since 1987, Vocollect, Inc. has delivered proven performance improvements in productivity, accuracy, cost reduction and worker satisfaction for mobile employees. Vocollect Voice literally talks people through their daily tasks, replacing cumbersome lists and traditional data capture methods with hands-free, personal voice dialogs. Through a premier global network of certified resellers and supply chain performance experts, hundreds of thousands of people on six continents use Vocollect Voice to improve work every day. Vocollect is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A., and supports its clients and resellers through offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.vocollect.com. Vocollect®, Voice-Directed Work® and Vocollect Voice® are registered trademarks of Vocollect, Inc. All rights reserved.
About Speech Interface Design
Speech Interface Design Inc. is a Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company, founded in 1993 and is located on Pittsburgh’s North Side. The company’s main focus is industrial and logistics applications of speech/voice technology. Speech Interface Design also integrates bar code and other cutting-edge technologies in their solutions. For more information, visit http://www.speech-interface.com.
About Glidewell Distributing
Glidewell Distributing Co. was founded in 1946 and services convenience stores and other retailers throughout Arkansas and Oklahoma from its headquarters in Fort Smith. Always family-owned and family-operated, Glidewell continues to invest in technology to help the company as well as each of its customers become more profitable. From candy and paper goods to frozen foods and tobacco, Glidewell supplies what America buys and backs it all up with friendly, hands-on customer service. Visit Glidewell at http://www.CstoreSuccess.com.
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COMPANY CONTACT: Susan Muttart
scmuttart@vocollect.com
(412) 349-2543
MEDIA CONTACT: Danielle Engholm
phone. (612) 455-1764
m. (612) 803-6489
dengholm@psbpr.com