ODW Logistics is an asset-based third-party logistics, or 3PL, company and transportation provider. They boast over 3 million feet of warehouse space in multiple locations in both Ohio and Tennessee, as well as in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles.
The thriving company provides warehousing, supply-chain innovation, transportation management, e-commerce fulfilment, and retail consolidation. They serve the unique needs of a diverse array of industries, including health and beauty, food and beverage, consumer packaged goods and retail, industrial and automotive, and private equity.

The challenge:

ODW sought a software solution that would help them achieve a trifecta of fundamental goals—improved staff ergonomics, awareness, and safety — while also:

• Increasing productivity and accuracy
• Reducing costs
• Yielding better value for their customers

The SC Codeworks Solution:

SC Codeworks had long provided ODW with its warehouse management system (WMS), the fully- integrated Codeworks Enterprise.

After consulting with ODW, Codeworks concluded that a voice solution — voice-activated warehouse management software—would most optimally address the company’s needs.

This existing WDLS could already handle functions such as labeling and printing. That system just needed to send, receive and interpret the various communications with the voice solution.

ODW sought a voice solution that:

• Could send, receive and interpret
• Was hands-free, eyes-free and paperless
• Could provide real-time updates
• Supported their order volume
• Had a quick learning curve for implementation
• Didn't require middleware

After researching ODW’s potential options, SC Codeworks determined the best choice was the TopVox voice interface from the Netherlands-based company Inther.

“The Codeworks WMS gave us more flexibility in selecting a vendor, since its standard features include support for voice technology,” said Jon Petticrew, Vice President of Operations at ODW.

The Products:

TopVox is a voice-activated transactional-level interface, which permits ODW’s staff to centralize control of the warehouse space and maintain robust visibility of their operations. This holds true regardless of whether the staff use the voice-enabled functions.

Codeworks designed a “traffic cop” to respond to voice prompts and direct the transactions and responses within ODW’s operations.

The TopVox interface leveraged ODW’s existing warehouse management system from SC Codeworks, which permits voice prompts to:

• Intelligently assign picks
• Direct replenishments
• Integrate cycle counting of locations
• Confirms the picks with Codeworks Enterprise

Staffers could also intermix their use of the voice-activated prompts with radio frequency–based methods, as well as paper picking.
Thanks to the WMS, supervisors gained improved transaction data for data mining, including:

• Information about operational tendencies
• Performance data
• Data for key point indicators, or KPI, reporting

SC Codeworks delivered the product and fully integrated it into ODW’s operations in three months flat.

The Benefit:

These TopVox solution helped ODW’s leadership determine how effective their processes were and identified areas for improvement.
Consequently, TopVox allowed the company to:

• Reduce order cycle times
• Cut staff training time
• Become more cost-effective

Most notable was a 28% overall increase in productivity, with some functions seeing productivity gains of up to 50%.

Once TopVox is up and running in one facility, all it takes to expand its use to another account or facility is a few simple updates to the existing WMS account settings. The SC Codeworks operations team manages this with no addition implementation costs.