PENNY Italia chooses VOCALIZE®: innovation arrives in 8 DC

PENNY’s Italian division was established in the summer of 1994 with the first sales point opening in Cremona as part of the REWE group’s international expansion process, for which the discount channel is particularly strategic.
Thanks to the success of the “assortment of quality, brands and low prices” formula, today PENNY garners 440 stores throughout the peninsula, served by 8 distribution centers and over 4,800 collaborators.

Goal:

  • Technological refresh
  • Increased operating flexibility with Android
  • The possibility for new implementations in the future
  • Extension of the vocal functions to other side processes

The Challenge

Voice technology evolves under the flag of flexibility

PENNY Italia was one of the first Italian companies to introduce voice technology in its Distribution Centers. After more than 15 years of picking driven by Speaker Dependent type systems along with a track record of hardware device renewal already on its shoulders, the company reaffirmed its long-standing partnership with KFI and decided that the time had come to migrate to new-generation voice technology based on Android and Deep Learning.

With the introduction of VOCALIZE in its 8 distribution centers, PENNY aims to avoid voice training sessions for new operators, gain flexibility in the operational phase, and additionally expand the use of voice technology to new business processes.

no training
sessions

flexibility

The Solution

With VOCALIZE, the system renews itself in a transparent manner

KFI and PENNY have initiated the migration to voice implants in a way that minimizes the impact of the new system on business infrastructure and the operator’s work routines.

This was made possible by special connectors which were specifically developed by KFI to simulate the operational modes of the Legacy voice solution. By reproducing the dialogues currently in use, VOCALIZE allows operators to interact whilst maintaining the usual interface, allowing for traditional workflow.

The possibility of exploiting the most natural form of communication – voice – combined with the flexibility introduced by the new Android palmtops, now allows a further 40 resources to interact in a perfectly integrated way with the information system while carrying out their tasks. Furthermore, the new Zebra laptops, on the one hand, allow you to record the movements of the goods comfortably from the forklift using the latest long-range optics; on the other, by hosting the native Android VOCALIZE client, they increase the mobility of warehouse workers, enabling them to carry out – in real time and without losing productivity – all those activities that require moving away from the vehicle.

The Results

Higher quality and openness to new processes

Increased
precision

replacement
with PDA

increased
prductivity

hands free
eyes free

Italmark has therefore recorded a significant decrease in errors without affecting the productivity of the process. At the same time it has also drastically reduced the equipment-related drawbacks.

Marco Ruffinoni
From 2003 Chief Information Officer of PENNY Italia

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