Industrial Case Study of the MICA Support System for Warehouse Workers Christian R. Prause Fraunhofer FIT Schloss Birlinghoven Sankt Augustin Germany Markus Eisenhauer Fraunhofer FIT Schloss Birlinghoven Sankt Augustin Germany Lukas Gillmann SAP Research Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16 Walldorf Germany ABSTRACT Returns caused by the delivery of incorrect items constitute a major problem for non-automated warehouses. Returns not only create extra costs, they also aggravate customers. Most errors in logistics occur during the picking process. MICA — a mobile assistance system for warehouse workers — unobtrusively navigates the worker on his way through the warehouse and effectively prevents picking errors using RFID technology. Therefore, MICA reduces error rates, job training periods, and the time required for picking and pack- ing, leading to lower costs for warehouse operators and in- creased customer satisfaction. In this paper you will read about a case study where the MICA prototype was field-tested in the warehouse of a medium-sized enterprise. Categories and Subject Descriptors J.7 [Computers in Other Systems]: Process control; H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: Interaction styles General Terms Economics, Human Factors, Management, Performance Keywords Assistance system, RFID, Navigation, Industrial Case Study, Warehouse 1. INTRODUCTION Warehouses with human warehouse workers are confronted with returns caused by incorrect delivery of items. Partly this causes huge extra costs and certainly has potential to annoy customers. Thus the primary goal for warehouses is to eliminate errors or at least reduce their number. Picking is the most problematic sub-process of logistics because of its high error-proneness [6]. Many different types of errors are known: picking of wrong types or quantities of articles, complete omission of an article type, and an insuf- ficient quality of articles delivered [5]. All these errors cause high costs for manufacturers and warehouse operators. Ei- ther because extra shipments are necessary, or, in the worst case, because contract penalties have to be paid. Although humans constitute the soft spot in this process, completely Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). MobileHCI’09 September 15 - 18, 2009, Bonn, Germany. ACM 978-1-60558-281-8. Figure 1: Lifting truck with boxes and RFID mount- ing of the second MICA pilot automated solutions are not an option for most warehouses because human workers are much more flexible. During economic peak times warehouses are forced to em- ploy unskilled workers in order to cope with increased work- load. These unexperienced workers are not familiar with the structure and organization of the warehouse, but have to be operational in a short time. Nevertheless, work has to be completed without errors and under the same high time pressure that also skilled workers face. Picking errors and time pressure constitute the major problems for unskilled and skilled workers. Hence, there is a need for an intelligent assistance system that supports the workers. By prevent- ing errors, it also reduces the pressure put on each single