Ergonomic Improvement at a Distribution Center Using a Voice-Directed Feedback System to Manage Loading Trucks

This field study reports on a wireless, wearable, automated voice-directed system where truck loaders at a distribution center wear a headset to listen to instructions and speak into a microphone to load pallets of product into delivery trucks accurately. The system was designed to provide immediate and corrective feedback to load pallets in reverse-stop sequence for all multi-stop routes. The voice-directed system intervention was instrumental in reducing the number of pallets loaded out of sequence to 0.015%, based on approximately 175 weekly routes, amounting to a decrease of an out-of-sequence percentage error by 99%.