Welcome To Walmart. The Robot Will Grab Your Groceries. (wsj.com) 46
Walmart is testing back-of-store automated systems that can collect 800 products an hour, 10 times as many as a store worker. From a report: In the backroom of a Walmart store in Salem, N.H., is a floor-to-ceiling robotic system that the country's largest retailer hopes will help it sell more groceries online. Workers stand on platforms in front of screens assembling online orders of milk, cereal and toilet paper from the hulking automated system. Wheeled robots carrying small baskets move along metal tracks to collect those items. They are bagged for pickup later by shoppers or delivery to homes. Walmart is one of several grocers including Albertsons and Kroger that are using automation to improve efficiency in a fast-growing but costly business that comes with a range of logistical challenges.
The backroom robots could help Walmart cut labor costs and fill orders faster and more accurately. It also could address another problem: unclogging aisles that these days can get crowded with clerks picking products for online orders. A store worker can collect around 80 products from store shelves an hour, estimated John Lert, founder and chief executive of Alert Innovation, the startup that has worked with Walmart to design the system dubbed Alphabot. It is designed to collect 800 products an hour per workstation, operated by a single individual, Mr. Lert said. Workers stock the 24-foot-high machine each day with the products most often ordered online, including refrigerated and frozen foods. Fresh produce is still picked by hand in store aisles.
The backroom robots could help Walmart cut labor costs and fill orders faster and more accurately. It also could address another problem: unclogging aisles that these days can get crowded with clerks picking products for online orders. A store worker can collect around 80 products from store shelves an hour, estimated John Lert, founder and chief executive of Alert Innovation, the startup that has worked with Walmart to design the system dubbed Alphabot. It is designed to collect 800 products an hour per workstation, operated by a single individual, Mr. Lert said. Workers stock the 24-foot-high machine each day with the products most often ordered online, including refrigerated and frozen foods. Fresh produce is still picked by hand in store aisles.
Unlikely to work (Score:2)
We don't have standardized packaging to facilitate this, and it's too late to make vendors do that. Basically we're stuck with hiring uppity human workers instead of robots.
We are forced to hire humans .. and that reduces productivity drastically. We should allow governments and people to make money from taxing and owning robots instead of forcing humans into work. Basically invest in factories and live from dividends. Government can cover income for people who aren't good at investing by tax.
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I mean, when "I" go shopping, I look for the freshest of the produce I want to buy, I pick the newest and freshest and best looking fruits and veggies I can find.
Heck, if the item I had gone for doesn't have any that look that great, but I spy something else that does look good, I'll go for that and make up a new recipe on the fly to fix with it...
I don't trust a human or especially a rob
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We cook >90% of our meals, and we use a similar "shop for us" service from our supermarket.
If there's something we're picky about, there's a spot for us to enter our criteria for it.
Generally, they don't send "the oldest", they send "the easiest for the picker to grab". 'Cause humans are still lazy. So when it comes to produce, it's usually whatever's on top, which is usually pretty fresh.
If it's a special occasion and we want it to be absolutely perfect, we'll shop those items ourselves. But for day-
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Re: Unlikely to work (Score:2)
. I absolutely fucking hate grocery shopping
You obviously don't take cooking seriously; if you did, you'd insist on being able to select produce yourself.
Re: Unlikely to work (Score:2)
You say it like it's a bad thing? They are still cooking and maybe it is good enough for them. We are talking about Walmart & Kroger here. "serious" is still a few price points further up. If you aren't growing your own egg laying chickens or sourcing from a local free ranging farm.. you aren't serious enough.
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You obviously don't take cooking seriously; if you did, you'd insist on being able to select produce yourself.
People who actually take cooking seriously understand the difference between whipping up something on a random Tuesday night and a "serious" meal.
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I expect them to try to pick the oldest item that needs to go out the door before it expires.
If they do that, the customer's next order will go to their competitor.
if you want to keep humans employed in grocery stores....
This doesn't make sense. If I order on-line, humans (possibly assisted by robots) will pick, pack, and deliver my order. So employment will go UP. It is people like you, who shop for yourself, who are holding down employment.
Re: Unlikely to work (Score:2)
It is people like you, who shop for yourself, who are holding down employment.
I do hope you're trying to be funny.
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I don't understand the whole "have the store shop for me" paradigm anyway....at least NOT for fresh produce and meats. I mean, when "I" go shopping, I look for the freshest of the produce I want to buy, I pick the newest and freshest and best looking fruits and veggies I can find.
How to I put this... if I wasn't happy with the typical quality of their product and had to trawl through the lot hoping they've recently restocked to find something acceptable I'd probably go to some more up-market store where the average is adequate or they have better brands. Obviously I don't want produce that's damaged or close to spoiling, but unless there's something clearly wrong with it I find one tomato tastes much like other - at least from the same batch. Particularly for everyday cooking where
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I tend to pick through what's there always...even in the same batch, there's some that are at
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That is the whole idea, sort of. Just because you order online and get it delivered does not mean you stop shopping. So I do an order, go through all the specials, try out come new stuff and then only go to the shop to buy for specific meals eg steak dinner or spaghetti bolognaise and pick up some veggies, small goods, meats et al at the same time.
So still go to a nice grocery store to get fresh vittles and have the packaged stuff delivered by a large chain store, once or twice a month (don't shop there ba
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Basically invest in factories and live from dividends. Government can cover income for people who aren't good at investing by tax.
It is not clear to me that existing economy could exist under such circumstances. There are two problems - if investment is consolidated (and why wouldn't it) in small % of population and the rest of population depends on government for income, then what incentive is there for investors to produce goods for the rest of population if the best case scenario is just making your own taxes back?
Such automation will be catastrophic for any market system and will result in central planning as market systems are
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Basically invest in factories and live from dividends. Government can cover income for people who aren't good at investing by tax.
It is not clear to me that existing economy could exist under such circumstances. There are two problems - if investment is consolidated (and why wouldn't it) in small % of population and the rest of population depends on government for income, then what incentive is there for investors to produce goods for the rest of population if the best case scenario is just making your own taxes back? Such automation will be catastrophic for any market system and will result in central planning as market systems are designed on the concept of exchange of value and not providing unpaid service to the population.
Oh well. It doesn't matter what's clear to you. This is the future and I would pay extra for a service like this.
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First off, the premise that ownership will be by a small percent of the population is false. Furthermore there is no reason that the problem would be unique to a robot economy. Even with human workers you can have consolidated ownership .. in fact it's far more likely to occur and does occur. There are a bunch of ways to prevent or reduce that problem btw.
Also "market systems are designed on the concept of exchange of value and not providing unpaid service to the population" is just plain false too.
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Yes they work and have been around for a while (Score:2)
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We don't have standardized packaging to facilitate this, and it's too late to make vendors do that.
Think about the shape of all the non-produce, non-meat stuff you buy from the grocery store. There's not that many shapes to handle.
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What's worse, is that I have seen a shift towards more NON-STANDARDIZED packaging! There used to be only one size of tin can for soup, canned meals (ravioli), sauces, vegetables, etc. But now in the supermarkets I see that there are strange sizes that do not stack well in your cupboard, or on the shelf. What is going on in the industry? We have had standard cans for decades, and now this?!?!
We're talking Walmart here (Score:2)
We better figure out what to do with millions of unemployed and unemployable humans. I hear they get kind of uppity.
Re: Unlikely to work (Score:2)
...people who aren't good at investing
Where the fuck do you think the profits come from for those who are "good at investing??" (Ya gibbering dipshit.)
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Explain it, you cowardly turdbucket.
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The stores I shop at I not only select my own products, but I also bag them. If I have 15 items or less I can also scan them myself.
For many consumers the hard part is escaping the workers who are supposedly forced to help them. Because something something, local tradition, freedom fries, or whatever.
I don't pay high prices at the stores I shop at, either. It is a myth that you have to accept bad service or shitty products to save money.
Robots could be really good at this (Score:2)
The great thing about robots picking groceries from an only order, is they could be more consistent than a human about picket out only reasonably good produce, and discarding the bad - lots of times with any produce delivery service, I've gotten some stuff that was pretty obviously not great but whoever picked it was not paid enough, or did not know how, to care about quality.
With machine learning and good vision setups, robots could be even batter at examining produce for use than a human...
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I doubt if the robots get smarter that they will pick anything near as good as you would yourself.
That is NOT in the stores best in
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Maybe the store figured that if you were ordering online rather than selecting you own produce, you must not be very picky about your produce. Hence, you may offer a great channel to get rid of produce that is 'just sort of okay but will probably eventually be left behind and discarded'.
Given It IS Walmart (Score:2)
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Buy n Large (Score:2)
Caution: Rogue robot.
Make the rate (Score:2)
Gross (Score:2)
Paywall makes this article useless. (Score:2)
Dear Slashdot editors:
NEVER, EVER use posts that only include a paywalled link as a backing article.
Yeah - I know the joke. The reason we often do tend to skip the article in 90% of the cases is because Slashdot articles are usually on stories so old that we already have read the same info from another source first.
"Robots" at Walmart is interesting, and would be worth at least examining the method of automation - but, yeah - paywall.
Googled for a non-paywall report (I suggest an adblocker):
https://www.fas [fastcompany.com]
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The linked fastcompany article is for a different automation system. CNBC has a non-paywalled article. [cnbc.com]
I said ... (Score:1)
Will these robots ... (Score:2)
It's Walmart, they'll screw it up (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually did an "order online, pick up at store" order on Walmart.com a week or so ago (it was after Christmas, and for some reason only Walmart had the DVD I was trying to find). The website and confirmation email both said "once you're notified that it's arrived at the store, you can retrieve it from the self-service Pickup Tower 24/7".
So a few days later I get an email "you're item is ready for pickup!" I roll into the store at 8:50pm or thereabouts. First thing I notice, I have to walk through half the store to get to the "Pickup Tower". Then, I notice it's gated off. I find a Walmart employee, who tells me the tower is only accessible from 8am to 8pm - so I show her the email which says 24/7. She calls a manager, who takes several minutes to arrive. Then the manager tells me "listen up, I don't care what the email says. I'll do you a favor and let you in this time, but if your item isn't there you're gonna have to come back at 8am - and remember the hours in the future".
I did get my item, so at least it wasn't a wasted trip. But why would I ever consider using that "service" again?
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My Walmart pick up story is different, but just as bad. I got the notification and go to the store. I find the pick up location and enter my name into a touch screen which then tells me an associate will be right out with my order. 15 minutes later I go to the service desk to ask what is going on and get told that I should have gone there first and ignored all the "Walmart Pickup" signage.
Argos (Score:2)
For decades in the UK, we've had a chain of stores called Argos https://www.argos.co.uk/ [argos.co.uk] where customers peruse a catalogue, fill in little forms for the products they want to buy, pay for them at a counter, then sit & wait for them to appear from a back room via a conveyor belt. Or nowadays, you can do it all online.
This sounds like Walmart are copying the formula & adding robots.
Welcome to Walmart, I love you (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be great if robots would greet you on your way in ?
Idiocracy was so right about the future :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]