Article
Ready for 'robots in aisle 5'?
Robots are not only helping customers in the store; they are helping each other, as well as assisting the staff, in managing shelf inventory.
February 7, 2019 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times
Store clerks could soon be spending more of their time monitoring stock replenishment and less time assisting customers, thanks to robots.
The partnership between Pepper — a humanoid robot that answers customers questions in a retail environment, and Tally, an autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution designed to ensure retailers that merchandise is always stocked in the right place and correctly priced — took center stage during a session on retail robots during the recent CES show in Las Vegas.
The session, which was part of the High-Tech Retailing Summit on CES Day 2, began with moderator Manolo Almagro, managing partner at Q Division, a consultancy, conducting an interview with Claudia, a cloud based virtual avatar, who appeared live via a wall mounted video screen.
Robot audits the shelves
Panelist Brad Bogolea, co-founder and CEO of Simbe Robotics, then introduced Tally, whom he called the world's leading shelf automation robot, and a product that "will be industry changing for sure."
Panelist Steve Carlin, chief strategy officer at Softbank Robotics America, maker of Pepper, was quick to credit Tally with playing an important support role to Pepper, who assists customers by answering their questions.
"We'll connect Pepper to Tally, we'll be able to say such and such an item is actually on the shelf, it's on aisle five at such and such a price," said Carlin.
Tally is designed to avoid a busy aisle and go elsewhere and return later, Bogolea said. He said it will also alert customers of its presence in the store environment. While Tally does not interact with shoppers, it does provide staff information they need to stock shelves during store hours. Tally understands where products are on the shelf.
Bogolea also said Tally was physically designed to reduce the fear most consumers have about robots. "It's important for us to take human and robot interaction quite seriously from a design perspective," he said. "Nobody wants big scary robots in places like retail stores."
Robots also make food onsite
Robots are also allowing foodservice operations to produce food onsite, eliminating the need for food deliveries. One of the busiest booths on the trade show floor was Wilkinson Baking Company, which demonstrated BreadBot, a robotic breadmaker that bakes bread continuously onsite.
Panelist Randall Wilkinson, Ph.D., CEO, Wilkinson Baking Company, said one of the most noticeable changes BreadBot brings is the transition from centralized food production to "moving to the edge," meaning onsite food production in the retail environment.
"In our case, it's taking bread that has normally been produced centrally and moving that out to the edge where when you produce it there, you cut down the need for distribution, congestion of the traffic, all of the things that happen, the time factor that delays, the age thing," Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said the machine is designed to address the disconnect between the origin of the food and its consumption.
"Today, nobody knows, for example, how bread is made," he said. With BreadBot, "they see the entire process from raw ingredient to the final loaf and engage with it. That process, being very transparent, is very engaging."
Who are the leaders?
When Almagro asked the panelists to name the top two or three retail robotic leaders, Bogolea wasn't shy about mentioning his own company, Simbe Robotics, as well as Amazon, with its warehouse robots, and SoftBank Robotics America, which he said has deployed more than 25,000 Pepper robots worldwide.
Carlin of Softbank Robotics America gave credit to Fetch Robotics for its autonomous warehouse robots.
Asked about the benefits to consumers and brands, Carlin said the goal of any type of automation is to eliminate some of the redundant tasks humans must perform. Most retailers, he said, operate between a 4 and 5 percent profit margin.
"To deliver on Wall Street's expectations, you generally have to add one more item to the (shopping) basket," he said. "All of the things you're seeing up here should be designed within the retail context to help them do just that." This includes gaining efficiency on the inventory and the labor.
"Keep the labor that's there as effective and efficient as possible," he said.
The biggest challenge, Bogolea said, is convincing the employees that robots are helpful tools.
About Elliot Maras
Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.
