Grinning and giggling as she scoops up heavy cases of pickles, Barbara Wermlinger makes the body-punishing task of readying pallets of groceries to be shipped off to stores look like a cinch.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Barbara Wermlinger uses a voice-directed device made by Vocollect while filling orders at a Giant Eagle Distribution Center in Crafton. Click photo for larger image.

Donning a small portable computer and headset that look like a Sony Walkman, Ms. Wermlinger plops the cases down on a motorized dolly and listens for the computerized voice to tell her where to go next among the stacks of shelves in Giant Eagle's gargantuan Crafton warehouse.

Dolly in tow, Ms. Wermlinger glides to her next assignment and rattles off a number into a headset that tells the computer what she's picked up.

The eight-hour shift of a grocery "selector" is still tedious and strenuous, but it's been made a bit easier thanks to Giant Eagle's investment in the conversational "Vocollect Voice" computer system made by Wilkins technology firm Vocollect.

It tells Ms. Wermlinger where to go, what to stack on the cart and just how much of it pile on. It even tells her when she's grabbed the wrong stuff.

That's not the only Pittsburgh-born high-tech trick Giant Eagle has harnessed to make its warehouses safer, its workers more productive and to help boost its bottom line. Giant Eagle claims a little more than 50 percent of the local grocery store market, according to Trade Dimensions International, and expects to do $6.5 billion in sales this year.

Miles away in Washington, Pa., in another of Giant Eagle's seven distribution centers, a robotic version of Mr. Wermlinger's motorized dolly or "jack," is whizzing around.

It's the "SmartCaddy," still being fine-tuned by Lawrenceville-based robotics startup Seegrid.

It's no coincidence that the region's dominant grocery chain is using two locally bred technologies to help it more quickly move millions of cases of groceries each week from its warehouses to the shelves of its stores, and ease the wear and tear on its workers.

The mastermind behind these upgrades is Giant Eagle's distribution chief Larry Baldauf, who said that in the five years the company has been using Vocollect Voice, they've cut warehouse injuries in half and boosted their accuracy rate when filling orders to 99.99 percent from about 97 or 98 percent.

With Vocollect Voice, Giant Eagle's warehouse workers can use both hands to life heavy cases -- in the past they often were balancing a clipboard and inventory list in one hand.

Mr. Baldauf said he's hoping to slash on-the-job injuries even more when Seegrid's SmartCaddy completes its trial-run is ready to be used in Giant Eagle's distribution centers next year.

Despite all three firm's shared Pittsburgh roots, Giant Eagle's route to finding the tech firms was a bit circuitous.

Mr. Baldauf was on the other side of the country nearly six years ago when he met fellow Pittsburgher, Vocollect co-founder Roger Byford, who pitched him on Vocollect's wireless voice-recognition technology at a food marketing trade show in California.

At the time, Giant Eagle's competitors were discarding their antiquated manual methods for refilling grocery orders. But Mr. Baldauf chose to wait.

"A lot of my friends in the industry thought I was crazy."

Within a year, Giant Eagle had fueled Vocollect with money to help produce its next generation Vocollect Voice" -- and agreed to serve as a guinea pig and early customer. Vocollect's sales are expected to be about $100 million this year.

The duo spent nearly a year working closely, each learning about the other's business, and then meshing their teams to build, test and tweak Vocollect's computer system in Giant Eagle's warehouses.

"We really needed to understand what Larry's business needs were," said Dr. Byford, who is now Vocollect's chairman and president of its healthcare division. That meant getting access to Giant Eagle's behind-the-scenes operations.

For Giant Eagle, it meant giving Vocollect the time and space to test the computer system -- and then the patience to work out the kinks.

"That's how we gained the competitive advantage. That kind of detailed learning cannot be short-circuited," Dr. Byford said.

Three years later, Vocollect's talking, wearable computers were fully installed in all of Giant Eagle's seven distribution centers.

Giant Eagle's relationship with Seegrid sprouted in 2004, when the young company's founder and chief executive officer Scott Friedman had what tech geeks often call a "mind meld" with Mr. Baldauf.

The Giant Eagle executive had gone to CMU's robotics institute years before, looking for help making the "jacks" safer and easier for warehouse workers to navigate.

"I went to CMU and said 'Look, we can move robots around on Mars, we need to [be able to] move a jack around a building,' " Mr. Baldauf said.

Seegrid's Dr. Friedman, a CMU roboticist, called Mr. Baldauf with his solution -- a "jack" that can move around the warehouse on its own, cutting out the need for warehouse workers to drive it around.

The hardest part was perfecting SmartCaddy's robotic "vision," Mr. Baldauf said, so the robot knows when to stop, start and how to find it's way around a warehouse.

A private, family-owned business, Giant Eagle was initially reluctant to discuss its involvement with Vocollect and Seegrid and declined to say how much money it poured into the two firms.

"We like to help young companies," said Giant Eagle part-owner and outside counsel Dan Shapira, who also sits on the board of both Vocollect and Seegrid.

"We only do it when it comes to the conclusion that it's a good investment."

Still, it's a risky and tenuous venture for any business to serve as a "real, live testing lab," as Mr. Baldauf termed it.

There's always a chance that the product could fail and that the endeavor and the investment could go bust.

But Giant Eagle's investments give them early access to new, cutting-edge technology to bolster their business -- and the chance to shape future products designed specifically to meet their needs.

Giant Eagle has fueled other young firms, Mr. Shapira said, but he wouldn't say which ones.

Since launching its Vocollect Voice computer system, Vocollect has picked up a string of warehouse customers -- from auto suppliers to Giant Eagle competitor Shop 'n Save.

That Giant Eagle spread the word of Vocollect's success helped generate buzz, Dr. Byford said. "That word of mouth really helps with a young company."