DHL Supply Chain has completed its augmented reality pilots and is now rolling out its Vision Picking smart glasses to warehouses around the world.

According to DHL, the glasses provide visual displays of order picking instructions together with information on where items are located and where they need to be placed on a cart. This frees pickers’ hands of paper instructions and allows them to work more quickly and efficiently.

“Digitalization 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,” sad Markus Voss, chief information officer and chief operating officer of DHL Supply Chain. “Customers have been very happy about the productivity gains and are equally excited about using innovative technology at their warehouses.”

DHL carried out a pilot programme in Europe and the US across industries such as technology, retail and consumer. These trials showed an average improvement in productivity of about 15% and halved training times.

“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,” said Voss. “As one of the first logistics companies using the technology, we have truly established a new way of order picking in the industry.”

During the pilot phase, DHL used Google’s Glass Enterprise Edition and Vuzix’s M100 and M300 glasses, while Ubimax supplied its augmented reality software xPick.

Additional applications for augmented and virtual reality could include training, maintenance and dimension calculations, according to DHL.