Walmart Tests Shelf-Scanning Robots In Over 50 Stores (engadget.com)

Walmart is expanding a shelf-scanning robot trial to 50 additional stores, including some in its home state of Arkansas. "Machines from Bossa Nova Robotics will roam the aisles to check for stock levels, pricing and misplaced items, saving human staffers the hassle of checking everything themselves," reports Engadget. The robots will be fully autonomous, though technicians will be available in case things go awry. They employ 3D imaging to dodge obstacles and make notes to return later if their path is completely blocked. From the report: Walmart stresses that the robots are there to supplement humans, not replace them -- to eliminate drudgery and the expenses that go with it. This helps workers get to the task of filling empty shelves, and that's a job that the company doesn't see ending any time soon given the difficulty robots still have when grabbing objects. "Store associates will always be better at that," Walmart's Martin Hitch told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. And the chief of Bossa Nova rival Simbe Robotics, Brad Bogolea, added that shelf checks can cost a major retailer hundreds of millions of dollars per year. However expensive the robots may be, they could pay for themselves very quickly. Whether or not the robots see wider use will, unsurprisingly, hinge on the success of this wider trial. Walmart posted a video about the shelf-scanning robots on its YouTube page.

Comments

Bossa Nova Robotics?

[sexconker]

Soul Bossa Nova? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Dumb, expensive and overly complicated

[DogDude]

This is not the right way to fix this problem. The right way is to have humans do this job. They're cheaper and more effective. Retail stores that don't have human employees actively working in them turn to shit very very quickly. See: most department stores in the US today.

You need humans to not only check stock levels, but to see and fix any other problems that may be around (anything on the floor, broken something, etc.).

If you're using them for ordering, you shouldn't. You should fix whatever's wrong with your POS system that can't track inventory levels.

This won't work.

Re: Dumb, expensive and overly complicated

[FatdogHaiku]

A relative of mine was head of IT for a vendor that served Walmart (and most major food retailers) and I was impressed by how he could check stock at ANY Walmart via a vendors app. Their system for inventory and ordering seemed pretty much on the ball. We actually checked a stores numbers and then visited the store to confirm and they were for the most part spot on for, say, units in the freezers. Back room I don't know about but they had never had an issue with out of stock where the home office didn't get alerts to ship more product to a warehouse. They also tracked expiration dates, as this was perishable food stuffs. I would hope that since they were doing all that already (this was 6 years ago) then any integrating of low stock warnings into the existing system would be axiomatic...
but then, they might be fudging their sales numbers...

Re:Dumb, expensive and overly complicated

[Dutch Gun]

The entire point of using robots is because they're cheaper than humans in the long run. Human employees are essentially a indefinite rental cost, there's supplementary costs and risks involved, they can quit at any time, and they can only work eight hours a day. Robots are a fixed cost of ownership + smaller maintenance costs, which will presumably cost far less in the long run. They can work 24/7/365, minus maintenance or repair time. In pure economic terms, it's rather nonsensical to hire a human to do a job that a reasonably-priced robot can do.

If you think this isn't the trend of the future, you're in denial. But there's certainly a question of how our society adjusts to robots "supplementing" (in reality, replacing) a portion of a currently human workforce. Certain types of jobs are constantly being phased out due to technology or automation, and while disruptive in the short term, society has adjusted. But many people are worried about the *pace* of these new technologies being a disruptive force, or the notion of AI replacing more skilled workers.

I'm more of the opinion that it won't be catastrophically disruptive to society largely because it will also help lower costs of goods and services. Plus I believe people are over-estimating how fast the transition will occur. Some people tend to neglect to factor in the massive inertia of existing infrastructure. We'll have to see how it goes - but there's really no putting technology back in the bottle.

Re:Dumb, expensive and overly complicated

[EndlessNameless]

The right way is to have humans do this job. They're cheaper and more effective.

The 1970s called. They want their facts back.

You need humans to not only check stock levels, but to see and fix any other problems that may be around (anything on the floor, broken something, etc.).

We have autonomous cars driving on American highways right now, and you think we can't figure this out? (Granted, they are required to have an engineer present in case the system fails, but that requirement will be gone before long.) Floor obstructions were already addressed, as the article says the robot can drive around them or schedule another visit if an area is completely blocked.

People need to fix issues, but a combination of robots and cameras can find most things. Detecting spills and messy shelves isn't much harder than what we are already doing. As always, you'll need to rely on manual spot checks for areas where robots and cameras are not practical or not allowed.

Retail stores that don't have human employees actively working in them turn to shit very very quickly.

It's not like they're getting rid of their entire staff. If anything, it will make them more effective. Having an updated map of shelves and what needs to be stocked will make it a lot easier to keep product available. This frees up the staff to work with customers and clean the store.

Overengineering?

[Codeyman]

Why are robots needed here? Wouldn't a simple series of interlinked "smart-shelves" that use the weight-differential to figure out the needed quantity of product in a particular aisle/shelf be good enough?. A ceiling mounted camera with pattern recognition engine can tell whether something is on the floor, detect if it is similar to product on the shelves and factor that into computation. Crunch the two feeds and you have an auto announcement bot yelling "Cleanup on aisle 2" and another bot updating a product counter somewhere that pings the human to replace the product if it goes below a certain threshold.

Re: Walmart saving jobs

[Thundercat007]

As big of a predator Walmart is to local economy, still amuses me they're complaining about Amazon and how "unfair" they are. The day I see robots flying around Walmart, is the day I exclusively buy from Amazon. Suck it Walmart,

The same Walmart that was to RFID tag everything?

[RhettLivingston]

In 2003, Walmart announced plans to RFID tag everything in the store and track it to the shelf it was on 24/7. So, I'll believe it when I see it.

• Supply Chain Comment: Did Walmart's Failed Case Tagging Program Set RFID Back or Move it Forward?
• Did Wal-Mart love RFID to death?

Fine with me, and I work in retail

[RubberDogBone]

Since I haven't found a job in my former and varied IT field, I am currently working in a retail store. It's as bad as they say but it beats unemployment.

One of my duties is identifying where we need to restock. It's a major PIA and takes a long time. In theory, we know what we had at last inventory and we know what we have sold, and this should tell us what we need to restock. And our district warehouse tries to send us what we need to keep pace with sales.

BUT this doesn't help us with products picked up from one shelf and put down somewhere else, or tell us anything about pilfered items. We recently discovered one of our shelves HAS been nearly entirely stolen, because we haven't sold much from that area. We do check it but we have a whole store to check. So nobody noticed everything was vanishing until I blew the whistle a few days ago. All that did was make my boss mad at me for finding it. Like it was my fault.

We have a huge problem in my store of not having items inventory says we should have. It's so bad, customers calling to see if we have something generally ask us to go put hands on it.

So it would be amazing if a robot could come into our store even once a week and do as much checking as possible. We workers would rather have a list of stuff to go fetch and move back to proper locations than trying to do both the find part and replace part. We would also LOVE having an idea of what we need to restock. We don't like not having stuff to sell.