Tasty Fresh has implemented a Dematic voice offering, transforming its stocktake and supply chain operations to facilitate a 35% more productive warehouse.
Tasty Fresh delivers fresh and hot food, snacks, and drinks right to the door of workplaces daily in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Newcastle, and Queensland.
“Tasty Fresh is a national business that started back in 1979,” Tasty Fresh Food Co. Founding Director Colin Lear says.
“We have six outlets across four states and service around 35,000 customers per day from around 153 vans. We produce around 60,000 units per day from our facilities, and we handle around 100,000 units per day.
Tasty Fresh got in touch with Dematic to receive assistance with moving from a manual stock tracing approach using paper and tablets to a more automated and centralised way of working that fosters greater efficiency, productivity and accuracy for the company's supply chain.
“Tasty Fresh's stocktaking processes previously involved each individual Van Sales Manager doing a stocktake on each individual SKU on our vans,” Tasty Fresh Food Co. National Operations Manager Adam Van Bergen says.
“With so many people counting so many SKUs, accurately managing stock was a real challenge.
One of the crucial areas Tasty Fresh needed help with was enabling data to be provided back to the company for inventory and reporting purposes.
A real-time logistics voice-on-Android offering was selected as the best system to meet its needs.
The voice offering provided by Dematic works as a seamless, paperless, and hands-free eyes-up solution.
Operators are led through a workflow using a mobile device and voice handset, with voice inputs and scanning sent back to Tasty Fresh's central supply chain system automatically.
This includes data gathered through anything from order-picking to replenishment and stocktake.
“The voice solution was deployed at each Tasty Fresh depot,” Van Bergen says.
“The two primary voice workflows that were implemented were pick-to-trolley and van loading.
Tasty Fresh team members are advised on which food or drink product SKUs and quantities are to be loaded onto each trolley.
After completion, members then move on to loading the van, at which point they are instructed, per van ID, which SKUs and associated quantities are to be replenished into each van in SKU sequence.
When completed, they proceed to van loading. Team members are then instructed, per van ID, which SKUs and associated quantities are to be replenished into each van in SKU sequence.
Demantic's voice offering tracks product shorts, overfills and audits at the same time, which saves time for workers as it takes out the back-and-forth in carrying out these tasks separately.
This helps Tasty Fresh to check expected stock from point-of-sale deductions and compare it with physical van replenishment, all through the one voice technology process.
“The voice solution tells us what to load inside the vans and tells the system how many we are loading,” Tasty Fresh Food Co. Brisbane Warehouse Manager Aline Parra Sanchez says.
“This means that when we are loading we are also doing the stocktake. It's a great system that ensures our stock is right by checking our sales match with the stock being loaded in the vans.
Voice technology provides up to 35% more productivity from legacy systems by enabling worker hands to always be free to pick products and complete all warehouse-to-delivery vehicle tasks.
The companies note that having eyes focused on the job at all times means workers can also find, pick and pack the right products at pace, minimising errors by up to 50%.
Further, automated stocktake also makes it faster, and reduces the margin for error associated with manual counting.
“Voice has improved productivity across the business,” Van Bergen says.
“We're saving between five and ten minutes a day per Van Sales Manager, and while that may not sound like a big deal, five to ten minutes across 170 employees a day is quite a significant cost savings.