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Thread: Robots to work in 50 Wal-Marts, including several in Arkansas

  1. #1

    Exclamation Robots to work in 50 Wal-Marts, including several in Arkansas

    PHOTOS/VIDEO: Robots to work in 50 Wal-Marts, including several in Arkansas

    http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2...arts-20171026/

    By Robbie Neiswanger

    This article was published October 26, 2017 at 4:30 a.m.

    Wal-Mart Stores Inc. customers in a few Arkansas stores will soon cross paths with robots roaming the aisles.

    The Bentonville company said it will begin using autonomous devices in about 50 stores next month that are programmed to scan store shelves and identify things like out-of-stock items or products incorrectly priced or placed in the wrong spaces. Wal-Mart stores in Searcy, Sherwood and Pine Bluff will be among the first to introduce the robots beginning in early November, according to the company. A Wal-Mart store in Rogers will have a robot early next year.

    The 50-store trial is an extension of a test first conducted in Pennsylvania as the retailer explores ways to use technology to improve its operations. John Crecelius, Wal-Mart U.S. vice president of central operations, said the expansion will give the company a chance to collect and analyze additional data as the robots take on tasks typically done by employees.

    "If you think about trying to go through a facility with all these different [items] and figure out if your prices are accurate, it can be very time-consuming," Crecelius said. "Then to try to figure out what to do about it. Imagine how much time you've lost in doing all that."

    The robots being tested as a possible solution were produced by California-based Bossa Nova Robotics. Martin Hitch, the company's chief business officer, said Bossa Nova has been developing the technology for five years and began a partnership with Wal-Mart about three years ago.

    A robot will be kept at a recharging station in a selected store and will move into action when it receives a "mission" like scanning aisles to locate inaccurately priced items. The information collected will be relayed to employees, who then will determine how to prioritize and correct any problems that it finds. Hitch said the information will give department managers and other employees "visibility across the entire department before they start the day."

    "It's still really all about the A to Z process of capturing data, analyzing data, creating actions and then taking actions," Hitch said. "Within that, we're good at doing a part of it, and we're terrible at doing a part of it. When it comes to picking the product up, the robot has no arms. That's a really difficult science, and it's a slow, slow science. We know that the store associates will always be better at that."

    Automation is taking a larger role in retail as companies like Wal-Mart work to improve efficiency and control costs. Last year, Wal-Mart introduced cash recycler machines at its stores and centralized invoicing operations, leading to the elimination of about 7,000 backroom positions at the store level.

    But Wal-Mart said the in-store robots are not replacements for workers. Instead, the company described the technology as a tool intended to aid employees and improve customer service, creating a quicker way to ensure that the right items are in the right places with accurate prices when shoppers search for them.

    "It has an objective to go look at certain things," Crecelius said. "For example, we might have it run very early before our morning associates show up so that when they show up, we have the right information to say this is what's most important. This is where we need your help right now and this is what's most important to the customer. It helps them figure out what's most important without having to go through the entire facility to figure those things out."

    Wal-Mart continues to invest in technology as it competes with retailers like Amazon.com. It is using drones in distribution centers to check inventory more efficiently and keep up with customer demand. Last year, the retailer began testing large, orange towers in its stores that dispense products that have been ordered online by customers. The test has since expanded with Wal-Mart planning to have about 100 pickup towers installed in stores this year.

    Brad Bogolea, chief executive officer of California-based Simbe Robotics, said earlier this month during the Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit that brick-and-mortar retailers like Wal-Mart must "embrace technology" to remain relevant.

    His company has developed Tally, an autonomous device that performs store functions similar to the Bossa Nova robots being used by Wal-Mart. Bogolea said the goal of in-store helpers like Tally is to perform time-consuming tasks that free up employees to concentrate on other customer-facing jobs.

    "Today retailers perform manual audits across their footprint to try to keep track of the health of product on the shelves," Bogolea said. "This is an incredibly mundane, monotonous, time-consuming process that takes retailers like Wal-Mart hundreds of hours every week. ... Any retailer in the top 15 spends over a quarter billion a year just performing shelf audits. There has to be a better way."

    Bossa Nova's robots will operate during the day and have on-site technicians monitoring their actions as they interact with objects and customers. But Hitch said the robots are fully autonomous, and the technician is "100 percent hands off" during the tests. The technicians will move off-site next year, and the robots will continue to be monitored from afar.

    Hitch added that Bossa Nova's robots have recently reached more than 620 miles of autonomous driving and have never had a collision. Three-dimensional imagery shows all the obstacles that are in an aisle, and the robot is programmed to move around them if possible, or return later. It also is careful around humans.

    "If we encounter a person, we have this view of be respectful first," Hitch said. "The robot will always stop. We move backwards to move away from the person. So we're giving them the space."

    Crecelius said there are a number of different ways the retailer can use the information collected during the 50-store test. The data will be analyzed by Wal-Mart employees, and the company will determine the next step.

    There are no current plans to introduce the robots in additional stores, but Crecelius said the company has been "fairly impressed with how it works" so far.

    "From our perspective, when you're doing things like this you're trying to improve your service to your customers and trying to make things simpler and easier for your associates at the same time," Crecelius said.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  3. #2
    Walmartians vs Walbots

    ... but can they handle Black Friday?

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    PHOTOS/VIDEO: Robots to work in 50 Wal-Marts, including several in Arkansas

    http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2...arts-20171026/

    trying to make things simpler and easier for your associates at the same time," Crecelius said.
    So simple and easy you can just sit your ass at home an collect welfare.

  5. #4
    The Robots of Walmart coming soon...
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Raginfridus View Post
    Walmartians vs Walbots

    ... but can they handle Black Friday?
    They better remove them then or they may get trampled .

  7. #6
    Have they posted how much the reward will be when they are kidnapped ? I would have needed that info for beer Fri when I was 16 .

  8. #7
    Just doing the jobs that nobody else wants to do... Next they'll push for minimum wage hikes - walmart will be just looking out for the 3 employees (non-robot) that will qualify. Meanwhile, any store that cant afford shelf facing androids will be forced to pay higher minimum wage, and find it even harder to compete.

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"



  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    The Robots of Walmart coming soon...
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    So simple and easy you can just sit your ass at home an collect welfare.
    Universal Basic Income.

    That's what it will be called.

    That's our future: superfluous meatbags, mindlessly idling out our meaningless, risk free, safety ensured lives under total government control and surveillance.

    Like a global human zoo.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Universal Basic Income.

    That's what it will be called.

    That's our future: superfluous meatbags, mindlessly idling out our meaningless, risk free, safety ensured lives under total government control and surveillance.

    Like a global human zoo.
    I suppose we can take up water-color painting.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    I suppose we can take up water-color painting.
    They have those adult coloring books up at the Walmart.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Universal Basic Income.

    That's what it will be called.

    That's our future: superfluous meatbags, mindlessly idling out our meaningless, risk free, safety ensured lives under total government control and surveillance.

    Like a global human zoo.

    Eloi.
    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Universal Basic Income.

    That's what it will be called.

    That's our future: superfluous meatbags, mindlessly idling out our meaningless, risk free, safety ensured lives under total government control and surveillance.

    Like a global human zoo.
    Technology will free us to do more important things than work for a living. Spandex jackets for everyone. What a beautiful world it will be.




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