Which is better: a speech-dependent or speech-independent system?

Thanks to technological development, voice picking in distribution centers and warehouses has come of age over the past decade. Voice picking is now a serious, professional option for order picking with end-to-end solutions. A solution often preferable to manual picking with list and also better than picking with bar code. There are two types of voice picking systems: voice dependent and voice independent.

Do you have a distribution center or warehouse? So what is the best investment?

CaptureTech believes that a speech-dependent (trained) system is better in every way. The language version of a speech-independent (untrained) system – usually Dutch – serves as the basis of comparison for all voice pickers using the system. ‘Speech-independent’ therefore does not take into account, for example, differences in pronunciation, a dialect or even colds. With a speech-dependent (trained) system, such issues can be overcome from the start.

Voice dependent voice picking

Each user of a speech-dependent system uses a unique language database optimized for him/her. In it, words spoken by the voice picker are compared with words previously spoken by the same person. The work environment in a distribution center or warehouse presents too many challenges for a speech-independent system. People talk in the background, a radio is on, a forklift drives by, and so on. Things that a speech-independent (untrained) system is not designed to deal with. As a result, the margin of error increases dramatically. And your investment in a voice solution doesn’t bring the benefits you’re counting on.

The benefits of Voice

A voice-dependent (trained) system from CaptureTech has the following advantages:

• Decrease in errors, thus higher accuracy
• Real-time, error-free feedback of data and work
• Usability
• Short training period (familiarize voice model by individual order picker)
• Increase in productivity
• Greater customer satisfaction
• A more than interesting cost savings

The short time investment per employee to train his/her voice database by speaking in will pay for itself in no time. Error rates will drop noticeably almost immediately, resulting in greater productivity.

View cases from our customers