materialhandlingupdate
BY DAVID MALONEY, SENIOR EDITOR
Since switching to voice, beverage distributor
Trinks has seen DC productivity surge 18 percent. a glass!
FOUNDED IN 1735 IN BERLIN, GERMANY, BEVERage supplier Trinks has had a long time to figure out
how to do distribution. But even long-standing
processes need a change from time to time.
For example, take the picking process used at the
Gosler, Germany-based company’s regional distribution facilities. Trinks maintains 16 DCs within
Germany from which it supplies some 7,000 customers—including restaurants, bars, and convenience
stores—with beer, soft drinks, juices, and water. Up
until 2006, the company used paper lists to pick orders,
but it was becoming increasingly clear that paper could
“Our workers had to pick up the paper to see the
next item they needed to select, but it is hard to pick up
a beverage case while holding papers,” says Pascal
Brettin, the logistics director at Trinks’ distribution
center in Niederbrechen.
After reviewing its options for upgrading its picking
system, Trinks settled on voice. What led the distributor to pick voice was the technology’s reputation for
boosting productivity and accuracy. Because voice systems let workers receive picking instructions through
headsets, rather than looking at a screen, they free up
