tomers, which include commercial and residential land-
scapers, parks and golf courses, and water management
agencies. The stores (or branches, as Ewing calls them) are
fed from the company’s main distribution center in
Phoenix and eight “micro” DCs (a ninth micro DC will
soon open in Heyward, Calif.). Because of the nature of the
business, Ewing has to have an extremely flexible fulfillment
system. “We offer everything from a 20-foot-long, 10-inch-
wide pipe down to small drip emitters used in irrigation,”
says Terry Williams, Ewing’s vice president of customer
experience. “So, it can be very challenging in how we han-
dle it all.”
In a bid to streamline operations, the company in 2008
replaced the paper-based fulfillment system at the 95,000-
square-foot Phoenix DC with a new warehouse manage-
ment system (WMS) from Manhattan Associates. At the
same time, it integrated RF-based scanning to direct the
picking operations.
While the move led to some efficiency gains, it quickly
became clear the scanners weren’t a good fit with Ewing’s
operations. For one thing, associates found it tough to juggle a scanner while selecting heavy or unwieldy items like
wheelbarrows, bags of mulch, and rolls of turf.
“The RF units were cumbersome for our employees,” says
Tony Saurer, Ewing’s supply chain manager. “They had to
put down the RF unit, pick the product, then try to pick up
the RF unit again. Workers were always worrying about
where the RF gun was.”
And that wasn’t the only drawback. Accuracy levels were
falling short of what the company had hoped for. Most of
the errors were occurring in the active pick zone, where a
lot of small items are jammed into tight pick slots. Many of
the items aren’t easily distinguishable from one another—
for example, an imprint on the top of a nozzle might be the
only visible difference between two models. Workers were
forced to rely on the error-prone process of matching up
numbers on a pick slot and a tiny screen. (The source of the
problem lay in the break in eye contact as associates glanced
between slot and screen—it was all too easy for them to
look back to the wrong slot when they made their picks.)
Over time, it became more and more evident the facility
needed a different picking solution.
HEAR! HEAR!
The answer to Ewing’s problems came in the form of voice
technology. In 2012, the company rolled out Vocollect’s
VoiceDirect system at the Phoenix DC. Today, the voice system, working in conjunction with the WMS, directs fulfillment activities in both the active and reserve picking areas
of the facility.
The shift to voice has solved the two biggest problems
Ewing was experiencing with scanners. Because it provides
for hands-free operation (workers receive instructions via
headsets), the voice system eliminates the need for associates to juggle a scanner while picking up an item like a 50-
pound bag of fertilizer. It has also improved safety by
reducing the risk that a worker will drop a heavy item on
someone’s foot while fumbling with a scanner.
On top of that, the voice technology has nearly eliminated the accuracy problems in the active picking area. With
the new system, workers no longer have to glance back and
forth between the pick slot and a screen. Instead, they simply read off a check digit attached to the pick location to
confirm they’re in the right spot. “Voice allows them to
maintain a visual with the product and location they are
picking from,” notes Saurer.
