Battle Hayward & Bower Ltd, the animal health and equestrian specialist, is investing in a 17 user Accord® Voice Directed warehouse Management System (WMS) for its Lincoln head office. The six figure investment will give Battles all the productivity and accuracy benefits widely associated with Voice technology while, for BCP, the contract further consolidates its expansion into the non food market.

Established over 175 years ago, Battles manufactures and distributes an extensive range of animal health, equestrian and pet care products to distributors and retailers across the UK as well as exporting its own brand products across the world.

Battle’s investment in new WMS technology was prompted by a wish to modernise and take advantage of new technology. It recognised that replacing its paper based system with Voice could help it to take a lead in the market, improve operations and offer the very best in customer service.

BCP was chosen because of its ability to deliver a proven Voice solution with its own tightly integrated WMS. The investment encompasses BCP’s full stand-alone Accord® Voice activated WMS to handle all key warehouse operations, including stock taking, goods receiving, pallet movements and picking. It will interface seamlessly to Battle’s bespoke ERP system and will include the ability to capture lot and serial numbers during Voice picking – seen as a first in the UK market. It will be implemented over the course of the next six months.

Key to securing the Battle’s contract was BCP’s proven track record in WMS and Voice solutions and their ability to understand the specifics of Battle’s business. As Jim Bowen, Battle’s Managing Director, explains: “BCP worked closely with us, through a series of workshops, to understand the details of our business processes and how their solution would work for us. A major attraction was Accord’s ability, through Voice, to demonstrably deliver huge real time benefits quickly. Accord’s ability to offer batch traceability through voice picking is a particular attraction of the solution.”