Vocollect

About Vocollect

In 1987, a trio of colleagues from Westinghouse Electric Corp.—Roger Byford and two others—saw immense potential in voice recognition technology for industrial settings. When their employer's interest waned, they seized the opportunity, believing someone would succeed with the technology and it ought to be them. This led to the founding of Vocollect in Pittsburgh, PA, with a clear mission: to pioneer voice-directed work. Their core product was a wearable computer with a headset that allowed warehouse workers to receive instructions and confirm tasks using only their voice, leaving their hands and eyes free. The company developed a suite of hardware and software, like the Talkman wearable device and VoiceLink software, that integrated with major warehouse management systems. This innovation addressed a key challenge in logistics: improving productivity and accuracy in tasks like order picking. By the late 2000s, Vocollect had become a global leader, with hundreds of thousands of users across dozens of countries. The pivotal moment in Vocollect's journey came in 2011 when it was acquired by Intermec, a major player in the data capture industry, for $190 million. This move was strategic, broadening Intermec's offerings in the warehouse space. The story took another turn when Honeywell acquired Intermec in a deal that valued the voice technology division, making Vocollect a key part of Honeywell's push into the warehouse automation and logistics market.