DHL Supply Chain to roll out 'Vision Picking' smart glasses across the globe

DHL Supply Chain has successfully completed its global augmented reality pilot and is expanding its “Vision Picking” smart glasses solution in more warehouses around the world.

DHL said the move will establish “a new standard in order picking for the industry”.

The international trials have shown an average improvement of productivity by 15% and higher accuracy rates, as well as halving on-boarding and training times.

The smart glasses provide visual displays of order picking instructions along with information on where items are located and where they need to be placed on a cart, freeing pickers’ hands of paper instructions and allowing them to work more efficiently and comfortably.

“Digitalisation is not just a vision or program for us at DHL Supply Chain, it’s a reality for us and our customers, and is adding value to our operations on the ground,” said Markus Voss, Chief Information Officer & Chief Operating Officer, DHL Supply Chain.

“Customers have been very happy about the productivity gains and are equally excited about using innovative technology at their warehouses.”

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DHL said a successful pilot programme has been completed across the U.S., Mainland Europe and the UK throughout different industries such as technology, retail and consumer, and that it has now “established the Vision Picking solution for the long-run”.

The technology has matured to become a standard, replicable solution for customers, allowing faster and easier implementation in their operations, helping them to benefit from productivity gains with increased speed of operations and better picking accuracy.

“We are very satisfied and happy that the pilot phase went so well and that we can now say augmented reality technology is one of our standard offerings at DHL Supply Chain,” Voss added. “As one of the first logistics companies using the technology, we have truly established a new way of order picking in the industry.”

DHL has been working alongside three partners in the pilot phase. Ubimax provided the augmented reality software xPick, whereas the recently announced Glass Enterprise Edition and Vuzix M100 and M300 glasses were used as hardware.

“Further proofs of concept running in Asia and Australia with other partners show similar promising benefits,” said DHL.  

“Following the success of its Vision Picking program, DHL is looking into additional applications for augmented and virtual reality such as training, maintenance, dimension calculations and more.”