FoodLogistics.com |

Lawrenceville, NJ: Voxware Inc., a leading supplier of software for voice-enabled warehousing operations, today announced that Albert Heijn, the #1 food retailer in the Netherlands, has deployed Voxware’s voice picking software in its four regional distribution centers, with plans to expand across its two national DC’s. The solution was delivered to Albert Heijn by Vanboxtel, a strategic Voxware partner in the Netherlands and operates on Motorola MC3090 mobile computers. Over the course of the upcoming months, upwards of 5,000 users across all sites will be voice-enabled for picking, making this the largest rollout of voice-based material handling in the Netherlands and one of the largest in the world.

Voice-based picking has been successfully rolled out in the four regional DC’s in the last two months and the national Albert Heijn DC’s will be targeted for deployment in January 2008. A consortium including Vanboxtel, Motorola and Voxware will manage this large-scale voice deployment.

“Three years ago there was no place for voice at Albert Heijn,” notes Boudewijn Canrinus, director, business processes and systems for Albert Heijn. “We were already using handheld RF terminals and achieving high productivity rates. We considered deploying voice and knew that our worker productivity rates would increase even more. However, at the time the limited number of voice providers resulted in costly investment prices and prevented us from preparing a valid business case for voice. Voxware’s open standards solution has changed the playing field for voice and enabled more choices and increased competition in the voice-enabled hardware market. The resulting downward pressure on prices made it sensible for us to try voice at this time and allowed us to select the software and device of our choice.”

“The benefits of voice picking are well documented, but for a long time rigid hardware solutions have been a barrier to widespread adoption,” says Scott J. Yetter, President of Voxware. “With our open standards approach, our goal is to enable the seamless conversion and execution of voice regardless of what platform distribution centers are operating with. We’re thrilled Albert Heijn has recognized the value of open, standards-based voice software and we expect a timely, successful transition to voice in all of its distribution centers.”

Additional information about Voxware can be obtained on the Internet at www.voxware.com.