WLN – First of all, what does your role involve day to day? Has it changed since last year?
My role is primarily dedicated to overseeing the commercial and technical direction of the business as we continue to expand globally. I don’t tend to do specific development for individual customers, however I do play a part in the technical direction of the company in tandem with our highly skilled development teams.
WLN – 2013 – How was it for you?
2013 was a very exciting year for Heavey RF Group. We took the year to refocus our efforts on our next generation voice application software. A good deal of 2013 was spent developing and testing VocalPoint3™ with the first beta sites going live at the end of this year and full launches to be seen in early 2014. However, we haven’t been focusing purely on technical development – commercially we have been extending our sales throughout the UK, Germany and Poland. 2013 saw Heavey RF UK expanding our customer base with significant wins in various sectors, such as Primeline Logistics, Bentley Motors, and the Ardagh Group. We have been receiving excellent responses from the German and Polish markets and hope to be sharing some of those developments early on in 2014.
WLN – How has the Warehouse IT category been performing this year? What do you see as the most significant recent developments?
The Warehouse IT category has been very positive. I would say that warehouses, with the advancement of technology on the warehouse floor, are beginning to identify IT as an area for cost savings rather than just a cost. Extreme focus is being placed on where savings can be achieved and companies are realizing the benefits in greater numbers. The recent increased emphasis on traceability and serialization is waking people up to the requirements at the IT level.
WLN – Have you moved into any new business areas in the last 12 months?
As the functionality increases in our core software offerings, we are seeing a wider net in which to deploy our solutions. This range extends from food service through intrinsically safe pharmaceutical environments. As voice directed applications become more of a widely accepted data collection mechanism, we see the continued trend of using voice applications across the wider spectrum of warehouse functions – for example, Goods Receiving, Stock Taking, Merging, Loading, etc. Horgan’s Delicatessen Supplies in Cork, for example, use voice across all of the disciplines in the warehouse which has prompted a new standard receiving function to be implemented in our core software. Other standard offerings will include Materials Handling Equipment safety checks using voice, and true multimodal capabilities – using voice, touchscreen and handheld technologies simultaneously.
WLN – What was your biggest investment to improve your business this year? What else have you done?
In January 2013 Heavey RF began a €1.8 million investment, purchasing a location in Cork where we have created our Research & Development Centre for all R&D moving forward. One of the major efforts taking place in our Cork facility is the further enhancement and roll out of our flagship product, VocalPoint. The process has and continues to involve a number of our customer base in order to ensure we are keeping on track with our existing and future customer needs and expectations. We are also incorporating many features which we have determined to be essential moving forward, based from our extensive experience and understanding of where the future of supply chain lays.
We are also conducting exploratory applications by interfacing with various other existing and emergent technologies to simplify the introduction of voice into any modern warehouse.
WLN – How are your existing products and services doing? Have you developed or upgraded your existing products and services recently?
We have been continuing development of our service portal, InHouse™ which has proven to be a massive success with our customers. With InHouse, our customers are able to maintain complete visibility with regard to the status of their equipment, even schedule repairs, request service, interact with our technical staff and generate reports to ensure that they are receiving the most out of their service contract with us.
Heavey RF Group has also incorporated all of the latest technologies offered from Vocollect within our VocalPoint platform. While we still maintain full capabilities utilizing Taskbuilder which executes on the VoiceClient platform and is used with T2x, T5m, and A500 voice units, we have completely adopted the use of VoiceArtisan which executes on the VoiceCatalyst platform and has been optimized for use on the more advanced A500, A700 series voice units. Suffice it to say, no matter what the gains sought to be achieved by a customer may be – we are well prepared to offer the optimal solution.
WLN – Have you launched any new products or services, and how are they performing?
The imminent launch of VP3 is currently under beta testing and huge efforts have gone into completing this and making use of all the latest industry standards. As part of our building of VP3, we took a step back and created an architecture which is not only true multimodal, but completely multilingual – matching the languages from Vocollect which is currently 35 different languages. We have completed and released our Polish and German versions which are available today, and as we continue our expansion throughout Europe will be seeing the implementation of further additional languages.
WLN – What’s been your company’s single biggest achievement in business this year?
Heavey RF Group’s single biggest business achievement this year would be the establishment of a direct presence in Germany and Poland. We’ve taken on board a number of people in each country and are anticipating doubling that by the end of 2014. We are excited and very encouraged by the reception from those marketplaces – which only further solidified our expansion throughout additional European territories.
WLN – What was your favourite business moment in 2013?
Securing a voice project with Bentley in UK was a highlight of Heavey RF’s year. Representing a company who, following extensive due diligence, aligned themselves with Heavey RF based on the two companies’ similar approach to business – pride and excellence in everything we do.
WLN – Can you tell us about your plans for 2014? Where do you see your business going?
We see a significant amount of growth throughout Europe with our multilingual solutions as we continue to deliver a high quality high value service. We look forward to replicating our huge success in Ireland across multiple countries in Europe.
WLN – Are you looking at taking on more staff or expanding your premises next year?
Yes, we are continuing to populate our R&D Centre in Cork, as well as acquiring an additional premise in Dubin. You will see additional expansion take place in Germany, Poland and other European countries. In the UK we have recently brought on board new talent in the areas of highly trained support and accounts manager specialists to persistently increase the offerings to our existing customer base.
WLN – Are you exhibiting at any major trade shows in 2014?
Heavey RF Group has an exciting exhibition planned for LogiMAT 2014 at which we will be demonstrating the German version of VocalPoint3 along with the rest of our offerings. Some surprises certainly await attendees of this event.
WLN – What other headline news from RF Heavey can our readers look forward to reading about in Warehouse & Logistics News next year?
We are looking forward to sharing additional new wins from Heavey RF UK and further expansions of both territory and solution offerings.
Phone: 01494 854455
Email: ukinfo@heaveyrf.com
Web: www.heaveyrf.co.uk
Twitter: @heaveyrf
Youtube: HEAVEYRF
LinkedIn: heavey-rf-group
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