Vocollect voice-enabled crown logistics to provide top 3PL services in Hong Kong

by Press Release on 2011-09-21 00:21:04

SINGAPORE (September 21) – Vocollect, a business unit of Intermec, Inc. (NYSE:IN) and the world leader in voice-centric solutions for mobile workers, today announced that Crown Logistics, a leading third-party logistics (3PL) service provider in Hong Kong, has exceeded its operational benchmarks after deploying Vocollect Voice to streamline its warehouse operations and procedures.

"Many 3PLs are reassessing their service offerings in the face of ever-sophisticated demands placed by customers," said Vance Lau, vice president and managing director, Vocollect Asia Pacific. "To maintain its position at the top of the game, Crown Logistics has chosen Vocollect Voice to update its technology framework, in its continual effort to provide warehousing excellence to its customers."

"We at Crown Logistics pride ourselves for providing top-quality services for the distribution needs of our clients across different industries, especially for the exacting requirements of the cosmetics, skin care and healthcare sectors," explained Mr. Analdo Li, general manager of Crown Logistics. "These businesses have procedures and norms that must be followed in order to ensure efficiency, security and peace of mind; and voice technology enables us to do that efficiently on the distribution floor."

Meeting Demands
With 1,240 SKUs going through its 10,000 square feet (3,048 square meters) cosmetics warehouse, Crown Logistics has to manage multiple challenges every day to ensure timely delivery. The cosmetics industry also requires high order frequencies and a large number of SKUs, but only small quantities per order. The manpower needed to consolidate all orders is not significantly lower compared to orders in large volumes, leaving little room for errors and corrections. Time and resource management is, therefore, a strong priority for the warehouse operation.

With an ever-expanding business and customer portfolio, a revamp of the old system mix of barcode scanner and paper-based assignments was necessary to achieve its operational objectives. To this end, Vocollect Voice was the solution of choice when Crown Logistics decided to give its warehouse a technology upgrade. Crown Logistics selected Schmidt, a certified Vocollect Partner, to customize and integrate the voice solution into its existing system and infrastructure.

Voice Benefits
Since September 2010, employees have been smoothly and swiftly picking more than 300,000 units of items monthly for delivery to over 100 retail locations using Vocollect Voice, with picking accuracy at an all-time high of 99.99%, far exceeding the 99.9% bar that Crown Logistics set for the deployment. Productivity in general has improved by at least 10%, over-and-above other benefits like improved safety and improved worker and customer satisfaction levels. The company reached its ROI in less than one year.

“Voice technology has given us an edge over our competitors. As a 3PL, we can now confidently make competitive service level commitments on order turnaround and error rates, which are vital gains that allows us to deliver superior service to our customers,” said Mr. Li, Crown Logistics.

“Real-time visibility of warehouse activities has improved and managers now have a better sense of the manpower required to complete the orders. Vocollect's real-time interface helps us to identify lapsed times for tracking," he added.

“We are happy to assist Crown Logistics in addressing its key business issues and we see a significant improvement in picking efficiency and accuracy by adopting voice technology, which should help its future development and business growth.” said Owen Wong, product manager, Schmidt.

With the voice implementation process completed in less than three months, and having experienced strong results from voice for a year, Crown Logistics is now exploring the use of Vocollect Voice in other operational areas including replenishment and put-away applications. It is also studying the possibility of implementing voice in its other DCs across Hong Kong.

About Vocollect
Vocollect, a business unit of Intermec, Inc. (NYSE:IN), is the leader in creating and providing voice-centric solutions for mobile workers in distribution and warehouse environments worldwide. The speech recognition software and extreme recognition accuracy of in-vocabulary speech helps customers achieve a higher level of business performance through voice. Every day over 350,000 workers worldwide use Vocollect’s comprehensive voice solutions to distribute more than $3.5 billion in goods from distribution centers and warehouses to customer locations. A global team of over 2,000 supply chain reseller and channel partner experts supports Vocollect Voice offerings. Vocollect VoiceWorld Suite integrates with all major WMS and ERP systems, including solutions from SAP AG, and supports the industry’s leading mobile computing devices. For more information, visit www.vocollect.com.

Vocollect®, Vocollect Voice® and Vocollect VoiceWorld Suite™ are trademarks of Intermec IP Corp. All rights reserved.

About Intermec
Intermec Inc. (NYSE:IN) develops and integrates products, services and technologies that identify, track and manage supply chain assets and information. Core technologies include rugged mobile computing and data collection systems, bar code printers, label media, and RFID. The company’s products and services are used by customers in many industries worldwide to improve the productivity, quality and responsiveness of business operations. For more information about Intermec, visit www.intermec.com or call 800-347-2636.

About Schmidt
Schmidt & Co., (Hong Kong) Limited, a subsidiary of Schmidt Electronics Group, was re-established in 1953 and has since built an enviable reputation in IT and electronic industries in Asia Pacific region. Today, Schmidt has become one of the leading companies offering integrated solutions and proprietary products in the field of Data Capture and Information Management in Asia.

Schmidt makes life simple by bringing together Bar-coding, RFID, Wireless, Voice Recognition and Biometrics technologies, to facilitate the creation of real-time information infrastructure, that helps customers optimize business processes, drive growth and improve their work and life efficiencies.

About Crown Logistics
As a specialty logistics provider, Crown Logistics (www.crown-logistics.com) offers retailers of cosmetics, skin care and healthcare products a solution to completely outsourcing their supply chain management.

Crown Logistics has established experience throughout the entire Greater China region with serving clients in the luxury consumer markets such as cosmetics, skin care, healthcare, high-end prestigious fashion and fashion accessory, and furniture. Crown Logistics currently manages over 1,200,000 items, equivalent to more than 20,000 stock keeping units (SKU) per day in the Greater Chain Region.

The Crown Worldwide Group, headquartered in Hong Kong, was established in 1965. It is a privately owned international transportation and warehousing company with more than 250 locations in 55 countries, providing third-party logistics, integrated hotel logistics services, international relocations and records management services to over 10,000 corporate clients including major multinational corporations. Crown operates over 7.3 million square feet of warehouse space worldwide and its owned facilities are valued at over US$340 million. In addition to properties, the company invests in its staff, expansive fleet and state-of-the–art technology to make services both cost and time efficient.