Lindt Italia, part of the Swiss group Lindt & Sprüngli, world leader in the production of premium chocolate and quoted on the Zurich stock market, is headquartered at Induno Olona, in the province of Varese. Synonymous throughout the world for high quality, Lindt has been contributing daily to spread the culture of fine quality chocolate since 1845.
With 6 production facilities in Europe, 2 in the United States, commercial and logistics offices in four continents, Lindt & Sprüngli has complete control of the production line in order to ensure high standards of quality. The Company is able to offer consumers a unique product that is exceptional in terms of food safety, traceability and transparency.
The Challenge
The logistics for the brands Lindt, Caffarel (a historic Italian chocolate brand, a byword for excellence in Piedmont, acquired by the Lindt & Sprüngli group in 1997) and Horvath (a brand through which Lindt Italia produces and distributes confectionery, biscuits, baked goods and marrons glacées) is managed centrally from a modern warehouse measuring 33,000 sq m, active since 2008, with headquarters at Magenta (MI). The more than 2,500 finished product codes involve around 200,000 shipments annually from 36,000 collection point scattered across the country and to 40 different foreign countries.
In 2014 Lindt felt the need to replace the radio-frequency technology and switch to speech solutions. After careful examination of what the market had to offer, the company turned towards the option of Vocollect Voice, chosen because it offered a solution based on processes and native integration with SAP. The project, with the support of K.F.I., got underway in mid-February 2014. In June the actual test phase in the field was already activated. This phase involved 5 operators who had tested and verified both the functionality and the benefits of the new system in terms of productivity and quality.
Having obtained significant results immediately, such as the simplification and streamlining of the picking process, Lindt decided to extend the implementation of the system to all 40 operatives in the warehouse.
The Solution
In February 2014, Lindt Italia adopted the innovative solution of Vocollect Voice in its latest version. In the space of a few months in Lindt Italia’s central warehouse, 40 operatives radically changed their working method into one that is fast and efficient, improving their working experience, a highly strategic aspect for Lindt. With Vocollect Voice the employees, rather than relying on an RF terminal display, use the most natural form of communication to get the operating instructions they need: the voice.
Thanks to this work method the workers have both hands free and greater freedom of movement, so they can carry out picking activities and communicate with the system at the same time, leading to a significant advantage in productivity and notable reduction in errors.
The SRX2 wireless headphones the workers are provided with, the workers have the best ergonomic standards for greater comfort and unique performance in speech recognition, as unwanted noise from the surrounding environment is blocked. The firm likes the Talkman devices in the A700 range because they are shareable and have long battery life. Vocollect Voice has also proved ideal for a multi-ethnic environment, gaining broad consensus from operators who immediately found themselves at ease in using them and quickly gained confidence in how they work. In the picking stage, operators are guided to a specific location, responds to the system by reading out loud the last 3 figures of the SSCC code, confirming the correctness of their position. Using vocal commands they assemble pallets consisting of numerous products and parcels, which are then transferred to a bay, ready to be shipped to their destination.
The Result
The constant support offered by K.F.I. and VOCOLLECT during all the stages was essential for the success of the project. The use of the Vocollect Voice solution has further increased the efficiency of the modern centralised warehouse. In practice, the workers are always active and there is no longer any need to carry out the quantitative control of goods on the pallets. The new platform has led to reduced errors and so lower costs. Moreover, the payback period will stabilise in two and a half years rather than the three years initially expected. Finally, the training time has been halved, from one hour to half an hour.
Testimonial
“For the success of the project, both in terms of implementation schedules and expected results, the trust that developed between the various stakeholders taking part in the project played an important role. Adopting this technology in an already highly performing environment was a challenge, and its success was made possible by the enthusiasm and strong determination to achieve the objective.”
Zardoni Roberto – IT Director Lindt Italia“The new solution is working even better than our initial expectations, so we are very satisfied with it. From the IT aspect in particular, the interaction with SAP, which we were rather dreading, was quick and interaction of our systems with the Vocollect solution was immediately possible.”
Tosiani Christian – IT Manager Lindt Italia“Our warehouse was already very modern, but the Vocollect solution has brought further innovation to the daily management of logistics, improving our performance in terms of efficiency.”
Mazzetti Andrea – Logistic Manager Lindt Italia