Walmart Ends Contract With Robotics Company, Opts For Human Workers Instead (cnbc.com) 46
According to The Wall Street Journal, Walmart has cut ties with Bossa Nova Robotics, opting for human workers instead. CNBC reports: A Walmart spokesperson told the Journal that about 500 robots were in Walmart's more than 4,700 stores when the contract ended. According to the Journal's report, Walmart has come up with simple and cost-effective ways to manage the products on its shelves with the help of its workers rather than using the robots. The report said Walmart U.S. Chief Executive John Furner also worried about shoppers' reactions to the robots. Walmart is pressing ahead with other tech-based experimentation, however. Last week, the retailer said it would turn four stores into e-commerce laboratories that test digital tools and different strategies that could speed up restocking shelves and fulfilling online orders.
Makes sense (Score:2)
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You just can't exploit robots as much...
Right, but you can... They work for long hours without complaint, don't require expensive insurance coverage, don't get overtime (or paid by the hour), don't call in sick, do the same job every time and won't ever leave for a better paying job. They are the ultimate employee.
The problem robots have is that they are not very good at working with non-robots, can be dangerous to their coworkers, and the customers and are pretty expensive to obtain.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with robot workers is the same problem that we have with self-driving cars. The technology is far less advanced than these companies claim.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not simply at matter of being advanced. In fact framing the problem as our software not being sufficiently advanced may be limiting.
When you study computer science in college you're trained to reformulate problems in the ways that lead to elegant and minimalist solutions. That's an important skill, but often real world software design can be like obsessively polishing a turd. If you work hard and long enough at it, you can do a pretty amazing job [wikipedia.org].
The more complex and open-ended the situation your software has to manage is (e.g. driving a car), the more of its value comes from trial and error -- discovering the corner cases and exceptions and just plain impossible to anticipate stuff through experience.
You may well reach a dead end because your approach isn't sophisticated enough. But even if your system is sufficiently advanced, you're far from done. Then you have to make the system *refined*.
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The robots actually did a good job of quickly taking inventory during the overnight shift. The problems were the employees who didn't understand what the robots were doing and thought the robots were going to take their jobs. If you really want to inventory a Walmart with a pen and paper then go right ahead...
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When I worked in retail 10 years ago it was definitely being done by hand. They were using hand-held scanners to grab the SKU but I don't imagine that speeds it up much, just cuts down on data entry errors. It was a large dollar store, selling most everything Wal-Mart does that comes in under $20. It occupied a third of the old Wal-Mart building, but with way less than a third of the Wal-Mart staff.
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The problem with robot workers is the same problem that we have with self-driving cars.
The problem in both these situations is that the robots are sharing an environment with people.
SDCs would be much easier if there were no unpredictable human drivers, bicyclists, or pedestrians.
Shelf stocking robots would be much easier if the store was empty of both customers and employees.
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Right, but you can... They work for long hours without complaint, don't require expensive insurance coverage, don't get overtime (or paid by the hour), don't call in sick, do the same job every time and won't ever leave for a better paying job. They are the ultimate employee.
The typical walmart employee does all of that too, but can also repair itself and power itself via government programs.
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"Walmart has come up with simple and cost-effective ways to manage the products on its shelves with the help of its workers rather than using the robots"
Indeed, it's very cost-effective to not pay your human workers very much
When a robot breaks down (Score:2)
You need to pay to have it repaired.
When an employee breaks down, you just hire another one.
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See, and people are worried that the robots are going to take all the low skill jobs. Nonsense! Humans just need to better position themselves to compete with the robots. This will end well.
Saw this one coming (Score:1)
Stocking Shelves....Still a human task (Score:2)
So, it seems that stocking shelves is still a human dominated task. I'm just going to guess this is but a temporary setback for the rise of the machines.
Re:Stocking Shelves....Still a human task (Score:4)
The fine motor control in an environment full of variables (picking and placing objects on various shelves) is one of the things that even AI-powered robotics have massive problems with. If you can eliminate meaningful variability, for example on the production line they're superior to human hands. But if variability is present, the fine on-time motor control is nearly impossible to do right.
Fine motor control needed for sewing, too (Score:2)
Ayup. We're not even at a point where a robot can successfully compete with humans at sewing most clothing, even in factory conditions. The fabric is made in machines, but as soon as it comes out of the fabric-making machines it presents enough variability-via-flexibility to defeat robotic sewing attempts.
It's not that there has been no progress whatsoever. You can get a t-shirt or a pillowcase sewn by a robot. It helps if you stiffen the fabric before sewing to reduce some of that variability and nee
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The fine motor control in an environment full of variables (picking and placing objects on various shelves) is one of the things that even AI-powered robotics have massive problems with.
That's only because Walmart's management was too cheap to rebuild the environment for the robots. Trying to mix robots into a human environment cause lots of problems, problems that can be eliminated when the environment robots worked is separated with humans.
Same as you have said about production line. If robots were introduced into a human production line along side with humans, it wouldn't have worked.
The correct approach is to build a warehouse designed for robots, then it worked extremely well. Look
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If you actually spend time watching the video you linked, you'll notice that you're in fact completely wrong. Robots can only move the shelves around. Picking of actual goods is still done by humans, because fine motor control in semi-random environment of variable shelves is not meaningfully doable by robotics even today. Even by Amazon that invested billions into the tech.
Which is why they still employ armies of "pickers", literally people who pick up items.
Robots are useless... (Score:2)
For the next few years at least...
Bin picking (picking parts randomly thrown into a bin) was impossible a few years ago. It is now not uncommon.
Give it another 10 or maybe 20 years, and general purpose robots that can pack shelves or pick stock will be common place.
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Not for much longer. Amazon started its "Picking Challenge" a few years ago, and the progress that has been made is remarkable.
http://amazonpickingchallenge.... [amazonpick...llenge.org]
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You just blindly googled and apparently didn't even bother to open the website you linked. I apparently remain that weird exception on slashdot in that I actually read things, rather than just google and copy/paste the first link. It's a blog for a team that came second for a competition on building a picking robot back in 2017. And all entries completely failed in that competition for reasons mentioned above.
And this blog is dead. Its last update is over a year ago, and none of its front page updates from
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The fine motor control in an environment full of variables (picking and placing objects on various shelves) is one of the things that even AI-powered robotics have massive problems with.
That's only because Walmart's management was too cheap to rebuild the environment for the robots.
No, it is not. Robots are bad at fine positioning of variably-sized items. An auto worker still guides the robot that torques the head bolts down onto the engine during assembly because that's hard for a robot to do, for example.
Re: Stocking Shelves....Still a human task (Score:1)
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Minor and temporary setback (Score:1)
Great Granddad got rid of his Model T because he said the roads were terrible and gas stations were too scarce so it was just a novelty item for the rich and would never catch on. With horses the infrastructure was sound and there were plenty of Blacksmiths shops. Horses were reliable and never got a flat tire. He went back to his horse and buggy. Good move!
Re: Minor and temporary setback (Score:2)
The more apt analogy is grandpa got rid of his steam powered prototype car as it was more expensive than horses with the plan to come back in later after someone like Ford ironed out the kinks. I dont blame anyone from holding back on robots now, but we do need a Ford like character to really work out a holistic vision of robots in our lives and cb lay it out affordably.
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which is precisely why I titled my post, "Minor and temporary setback"
Their robots were creepy. (Score:3)
Literally, this thing driving around you could fit a midget in, acting vaguely intelligent and responding to you, called brain /neuron something. If they created like a self driving shopping cart that associates interacted with and remote controlled, it wouldnt be as creepy.
Manna (Score:2)
Automation has pros and cons (Score:4, Informative)
Automation works best when there are few humans roaming around it. In places surrounded by people, automation - in particular those involving wheels and self-driving units - ends being not efficient, as they have to stop for pedestrians (safety first!) or those waking in front of a driving machine ("stupid robot stealing my job"). Yes, a robot won't complain doing overtime and carrying weight all day long, and yes, you can still take disciplinary actions about those skewing the automation, but there is still a long way to go to safely mix up man and machine.
I do work for a large worldwide manufacturing, and have scrapped a few multi-million projects because of the above. So I get and support Walmart's decision. Good for humans (I guess?).
Re: Automation has pros and cons (Score:1)
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And that's probably why Walmart stopped using them.
1) Customers probably end up playing with them just because, turning a simple task of restocking a product on the shelf from a 5 minute job to a 30 minute ordeal. Face it, as a human, we'd all. play with the robot just because. And when you have kids around, the robots will have a traffic jam at the warehouse door leaving because kids and kids in adult bodies just love stepping in front of them.
I don't think this will ever lose its novelty either. Hell, peo
All about the value proposition.... (Score:2)
I've seen these robots in WalMart stores a few times, usually sitting idle, parked someplace where I assume they're recharging.
The question about automation always comes down to one basic question; Can it help do a task for you more efficiently than using human labor?
With the shelf-stocking task, I imagine the lack of flexibility is what really makes it less worthwhile for WalMart. There's a lot of up-front cash outlay to get the robots, and then unlike a human, you can't really teach or train them to do a
unemployment is up... (Score:2)
roboployment is down
Better robots (Score:2)
Because, you know, human robots are so much better than mechanical ones.
What about management? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
500 robots in 4700 stores? (Score:2)
No wonder it didn't work.
Did they cut up every robot in 5 pieces and gave each store a piece of the robot?
this isn't really true (Score:2)
I've been noticing Walmart's increasing use of automation in stocking its shelves for years now. The thing making the last movement of the product to the shelf is only performing a small fraction of the job. Most of the newer automation is in the packaging and transport.
Pallets of goods arrive at Walmart already organized so that the pallet contains meant for one area of shelving. In an increasing number of cases, the pallets are "the shelving" in that they are complete displays that just get dropped in the
Wal-Mart and 'Tech Theatre'... (Score:2)
At the local walmart to me, people who have worked there say that the trucks that arrive every night (10-15 trucks per night) do not have loads palletized at all.
The product cases are stacked right on the floor (up to the ceiling) and a few employees have to unload them using skate-wheel conveyors.
They do have palletized displays (that they just unwrap and leave in the aisle centers, st
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At the local walmart to me, people who have worked there say that the trucks that arrive every night (10-15 trucks per night) do not have loads palletized at all.
The product cases are stacked right on the floor (up to the ceiling) and a few employees have to unload them using skate-wheel conveyors.
Per the trainers in the hazmat classes I have been in, part of the reason for mixed loads like that is so that they can split up hazmat items so that none of the trucks have a reportable amount of hazmat items and don't have to use hazmat placards.
Aaron Z
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It seems to be more of a publicity stunt than anything else.
It also helps keep wages low to show employees that their job is so simple it can be done by a robot. Of course that backfires if the job can't actually be done by a robot. :)
Sloppy shelves (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m inclined to think this had a lot more to do with sloppy shelves that were difficult for a robot to measure accurately than any considerations for human beings. Especially if those people figure out that sloppy shelves make the robots job much harder.
On paper everything is stacked and faced correctly. In the real world the person doing the job doesnâ(TM)t care. Neither do the customers.
Robot lives matter? (Score:2)
Or not.
Some jobs are hard in weird ways (Score:2)