DHL supply chain uses Frontline Pick to help increase productivity and reduce error rates

Background

DHL Supply Chain is the world’s leading logistics company, with around 185,000 employees in over 50 countries, offering a wide range of logistics operations to their customers. DHL operates warehouse distribution centers for some of the world’s leading brands.

DHL is known for its operational excellence and commitment to accelerated digitalization. As part of that commitment, DHL is continually evaluating technology that boosts efficiency and lowers costs for its customers. To support this goal, DHL Supply Chain adopted TeamViewer Frontline’s vision picking solution for order picking globally in 2017.

TeamViewer Frontline’s focus on scalability enables large-scale rollouts, so that in the US alone, around 1,500 employees at 25 sites work with innovative technology on a daily basis. At one of their warehouses in Lockbourne, Ohio, they do order fulfilment for a high-end consumer product brand.

Challenges

Process optimization plays a key role in the logistics industry. Previously used technologies had complex user interfaces with various menus and information. This resulted in more resources spent on quality assurance procedures. Moreover, these solutions typically required days or weeks of training when onboarding.

DHL needed a new solution that allowed the company to react to market changes quickly, deploy staff flexibly, and mitigate a number of other challenges:

• Increasing order volume in the logistics sector calls for constant process optimization
• Rising order fulfillment complexity, fluctuating market needs, and labor shortages
• Existing methods such as handhelds were complex, and harder to learn

Solution

With TeamViewer Frontline Pick technology, DHL warehouse employees can utilize smart glasses equipped with vision picking software to provide visual cues throughout the picking process. For real-time data access, the Frontline solution is seamlessly integrated with DHL’s warehouse management system, establishing a process that is fully connected end-to-end.

Thanks to the high level of user-friendliness and the intuitive user interface of Frontline Pick, workers are able to onboard quickly with easy-to-understand, visually displayed information that is adjustable to the worker’s preferred language. As a result, new employees are productive right from the start.

Frontline software walks users through the order step-by-step and displays all the information needed to fulfil the order right in their field of view. For example, a DHL warehouse employee utilizing the solution can see the correct aisle number, shelf, and bin to pick an item from and where to place it. Employees then receive instant audio and visual feedback if they pick the correct item.

In addition to the operational support for multi-order requests and case picking, Frontline Pick allows DHL to go beyond vision picking and includes an option to carry out cycle counting integrated into the picking processes. This allows DHL to verify and keep their inventory updated after every pick without the need for an extra process.

With TeamViewer Frontline, workers can benefit from a more modern workplace and DHL streamlines their operations resulting in a competitive business advantage.