Since Amazon bought warehouse robotics company Kiva Systems in 2012, its efforts in automation have been well known. The retail and tech powerhouse has introduced its cashierless Amazon Go stores, flirted with plans for drone deliveries, and rolled out tens of thousands of robots to shuffle goods around its fulfillment centers.
“In fulfillment centers that have drive units, we’re able to store up to 40% more inventory and move customer orders in a faster, more efficient way,” wrote VP of robotics Brad Porter in an email to Fast Company, referring to the Kiva-derived warehouse transport bots. “As a result, we can make faster deliveries, offer lower prices, and ultimately, deliver a better customer experience.”
But Amazon hasn’t been alone in pushing to bring robotics to the world of retail. Archrival Walmart has been adding bots to many of its warehouses and stores. A grocery distribution center in Shafter, California, is set to open in 2020, with new technology in place to shuttle even perishable goods around the warehouse without damaging them. In a Salem, New Hampshire, Walmart, automated carts will soon shuttle components of online grocery orders from an attached warehouse to be packaged up by human workers.
Other store bots include an autonomous scrubber that’s set to clean floors in 360 Walmart stores by the end of January, a robotic truck-unloading system that can sort and triage new deliveries on their way to shelves, and even machines that roll through store aisles to track inventory and spot misshelved goods.
“This robot can do in about two-and-a-half hours what it was taking an associate around two weeks to do, which is go through all of a department and scan the merchandise and determine where are the [out of stock items], where do we need to get the merchandise, the out of stock levels, those type of things,” says Walmart spokesperson Ragan Dickens.
Automated pickup towers in many stores also deliver customers their online orders without them having to wait on a store employee.
Separately, supermarket chain Kroger last month announced plans with a U.K. online retailer to build “an automated warehouse facility with digital and robotic capabilities” outside of Cincinnati, and Bossa Nova, the San Francisco company that’s brought shelf-scanning bots to dozens of Walmart stores, is working with at least five other as-yet-unnamed retailers on similar projects, says chief business officer Martin Hitch.
“This is the most exciting time in retail in roughly the past 100 years,” says Sterling Hawkins, head of operations and venture relations for the Center for Advancing Retail & Technology, which connects retailers and tech vendors. “Finally, this emerging technology–automation, AI, robotics–is at a point where it can actually deliver on the vision technically and economically.”
WILL JOBS BE DESTROYED OR CREATED?
Stores say automation can help them get goods to customers more efficiently. Those Amazon robots mean warehouses can store more goods and enable the fast deliveries that the company’s become known for, according to the company. Similarly, Walmart says its robots mean fewer customers will be unable to buy their favorite products because they’re sitting on the loading dock instead of on the shelf where they belong.
But some critics fear robots will inevitably also take jobs away from retail, warehouse, and maintenance workers.
“Make no mistake, Walmart’s move to autonomous floor cleaners is not about better serving customers and workers,” warned the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union’s Making Change at Walmart project in a statement last week. “This latest job-killing venture has the potential to destroy over 5,000 maintenance jobs in the U.S. if it is implemented in every Walmart store.”
The union, which based that number on an assumption that the devices would ultimately mean one less maintenance position per store, has had similar criticism for Amazon’s push to automation.
“Amazon is clearly determined to profit by creating a future where automation replaces good jobs,” UFCW President Marc Perrone said in an open letter to Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey last year, as that supermarket chain was being acquired by Amazon.
More recently, he’s expressed concern about a Wall Street Journal reportthat Amazon is testing its cashier-free systems for larger stores, potentially including Whole Foods locations.
Amazon declined to comment to Fast Company about that report, but in general the company has said automation has helped it create jobs, not replace human workers.
“We are both creating jobs and adding automation,” Porter wrote, saying the company has added more than 300,000 full-time workers since 2012. “Automation has allowed us to offer increasing selection with faster delivery at lower cost. This is a virtuous cycle allowing our business to continue to grow and create more jobs.”
Walmart’s Dickens, too, says the chain’s robots are allowing employees to focus on tasks machines can’t do, like cleaning areas where robots can’t reach or restocking shelves that a robot has pointed out are running low. And, he emphasizes, newly automated tasks like scrubbing floors, checking out online orders, or checking shelves for products in need of replacement aren’t the entirety of anyone’s shift.
“These are portions of a larger role that the associate is playing,” he says.
In some cases, they’re also automating away the more unpleasant parts of tasks like unloading trucks in the back of a store, potentially improving the job and reducing turnover. They also let staff spend more time directly helping customers, he says.
“While yes, there’s robotics in the store, it’s assisting the associate with their job rather than replacing it,” he says. “What we’re working on is providing our associates good jobs and providing out customers good experiences.”
