Tired of touchscreens and keyboards? Want to be able to say: “What’s next? I’m done with job 14,” or “Computer, bring up the instructions for the next job on screen 3,” or “Notify the tool room that I’ll need a new 9/16 bit by 10 o’clock.” All this and more will be arriving at a workstation near you soon.
Voice technology, which includes voice response (the system talking to you) and voice recognition (talking to your system), isn’t novel technology. Voice systems have been in use for years in limited applications in warehouses and plants. However, substantial advancements in speech recognition and AI, driven by the high demand for devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo in the consumer space will soon usher in a truly functional, new, and effective voice interface for factory and business systems.
Advantages, challenges of voice technology for manufacturing plants
Some warehouse and plant operations areas benefit from reporting and data collection while the job is in progress – for example, picking certain items to put into a shipping carton for retail fulfillment. A voice technology-enabled headset with a microphone allows the worker to acquire instructions and report picks while moving up/down the aisles, using both hands to pick and pack on the go. Voice technology is used for similar data collection tasks within the plant. However, these are limited applications with just simple information exchange.
The new breed of voice technology is far more functional and interactive. Voice is developing into a full-service Human-Machine Interface (HMI) that replaces the touchscreen and keyboard, and its functionality is an outcome of AI. By its nature, human language is not accurate and subject to interpretation. If there’s no AI, voice commands have to be predefined, specific sounds, and works to be understood by the machine. Machine learning and AI allow the system to learn every different way a human can say something to respond appropriately.
Voice interfaces promise to be less invasive, more reliable, and quicker than a touch interface or keyboard because it doesn’t need to take hands or eyes off the job. Plus, it feels natural.
There are certain obstacles to the widespread adoption of voice technology in the plant. One is the noise. And software developers have to integrate this technology into application sets too. The extra computing power required to operate these voice engines will add cost for these systems and the plant infrastructure to support them.
Voice technology taking manufacturing plants into the future
When will voice technology become common in the plant? “Sooner than you might think” is probably a good rule of thumb for such advanced technology. Look at how fast numerous people have installed and quickly become enamored with – if not dependent entirely on Siri from Apple, Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa. And for HMI, voice isn’t likely to be the end of the road. Did you see Minority Report – a movie released in 2002? Remember Tom Cruise manipulating holographic images in it? How about the wave sensors and brain implants? In an ever-accelerating technological explosion, several fictional technologies are turning into reality. We know the voice is next, but who is to say what comes later?
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