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Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

businessinsider.com

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Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#101

Post by gowld »

panopticon wrote: post #23
timthelion wrote: post #17

It seems interesting to me, that computers seem to be taking on managerial roles and humans are left with manual labor. The robot knows how to tell a human to fix a problem but doesn't know how to restock the shelves itself. Similarly, in warehouses, computers tell humans what to do, and the human's job is basically just to grab things. In the end, the robot is already higher on the ladder than the humans.

Reminds me of this story: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm I always thought it was amusing when people said it would replace burger flippers and the like. Why? They're cheap, and that's relatively expensive/difficult to automate. The slightly higher paid manager though? Ripe for automation.

> They're cheap, and that's relatively expensive/difficult to automate.

that's a weird thing to say, because burger flippers ARE automated -- 99% of the work of making a McDonald's burger is already automated, only the remaining hard-to-automate 1% is left for the humans.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#102

Post by jdietrich »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #27
meddlepal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to feel that way about bank tellers (having been a former bank teller a long time ago...) then I realized I was wasting 20 minutes in line for a simple deposit that the machine could do in under two minutes without a queue.

Don't you feel a tinge of guilt when you walk in one day and now there's only two tellers instead of three? Maybe I'm just weird but I was at target yesterday and there were only three aisles open with lots of people going to self checkout. I said fuck it and waited in line for a person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#103

Post by pwinnski »

forapurpose wrote: post #50

I wonder why they settled on putting the cameras in robots that are on the floor. Why not use cameras attached to the ceiling? If the cameras need to move to get a good angle, they could move up and down the aisle on tracks or Walmart could simply install more cameras. If the ceiling is a bad angle, they could put them on the floor under the shelving, or on top of the shelves, or in several other places. None of thos…

Flexibility.

Everything you're describing has more limitations than putting a mobile robot on the floor, and the robots require no additional accommodations in store design.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#104

Post by rocketier »

PatientTrades wrote: post #64

Walmarts are already overcrowded as it is. Adding robots is going to clog the aisles even more. It could still work I guess

It is implied in the article, yes, but i dont see a reason why these robots shoudl not operate at closing hours or if it is a 24/7 then at a time when the number of visitors is lowest, say 3 or 4 am.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#105

Post by tradersam »

duderific wrote: post #71
kristofferR wrote: post #65

Judging from the pictures they'll still use paper price labels. Why? It seems extremely arcane to still use paper price labels in 2017, especially for stores as big and centrally run as Walmart. With digital price labels you can update prices centrally across the whole country within seconds, and it costs basically nothing to implement too, when the labor cost of manually updating paper price labels are factored in.

> and it costs basically nothing to implement too. I find that hard to believe, given the scale of Walmart's operations - they have close to 5000 stores, and who knows how much technical debt they have in their stocking/inventory systems.

Considering the fact that Walmart's last FY earnings were something to the tune of $124.62B,[1] regardless of technical debt or other factors I don't think spending less than 1% of that to do a (probably) much needed upgrade is a hard sell to anyone rational.

[1]: https://amigobulls.com/stocks/WMT/income-statement/annual

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#106

Post by icebraining »

ryandrake wrote: post #36
irl_zebra wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you refuse to use the self checkout?

Convenience/efficiency more than anything. Most of the time, human checkout is faster than self-checkout. I can prepare my payment in parallel with the human operating the checkout hardware. I don't have to learn and navigate the touch screen menu system (even if it can be learned in a second, that's one second more than the zero I get with human checkout). Often, self checkout kiosks fail in ways that require a huma…

Prepare your payment? What's there to prepare?

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#107

Post by woobar »

monkmartinez wrote: post #97
woobar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I want to see up-to-date retail stock mapping (that I can search) Just got from Lowes and they do it on the web and in their app. Search for an item, and if it is in stock it will show you its location on the store map. OTOH, every Walmart I've visted is unable to keep their shelves full. [1] How hard it is to keep something non-perishable (like deodorant) in stock? Somehow Target figured that out. [1]…

Anecdote time! I bought a water softener at HomeDepot about three weeks ago. Initially went to my local Lowes where I had checked if one was in stock and at the store. Yes and Yes. Get to Lowes and there is no water softener, as the website indicated. Lowe's employee checked the back as well, wasn't there. There are many problems with humans doing this "inventory business" at $10 an hour or so. The professional count…

Yeah, it isn't perfect. Sometimes I see more variety on the shelves then was reported by the search results. But my primary use case is the store map. It is so easy to get lost in Lowes/Home Depot.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#108

Post by kin »

They'll probably be more effective to be honest. Anecdotally, I've encountered nothing but incompetence when it comes to getting help from Walmart store employees. When asked where I can find something their response is usually "somewhere in that area" while pointing broadly.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#109

Post by kondro »

tradersam wrote: post #105
duderific wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it costs basically nothing to implement too. I find that hard to believe, given the scale of Walmart's operations - they have close to 5000 stores, and who knows how much technical debt they have in their stocking/inventory systems.

Considering the fact that Walmart's last FY earnings were something to the tune of $124.62B,[1] regardless of technical debt or other factors I don't think spending less than 1% of that to do a (probably) much needed upgrade is a hard sell to anyone rational. [1]: https://amigobulls.com/stocks/WMT/income-statement/annual

Gross profit is not net profit.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#110

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jdietrich wrote: post #95
JSONwebtoken wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the foreseable future, robots and chatbots will be poorer UX than speaking to a human. Since it's not adding value to their product it's obviously being done for cost cutting and scale reasons.

I rarely get useful assistance in large chain stores. Asking "where is the pesto?" usually gets an answer like "I dunno, somewhere in aisle 7 maybe" with an indifferent shrug. I'd happily make three attempts at using a clunky voice interface if I got the answer "Aisle 7, bay 11, shelves 3 and 4. We have 18 different kinds of pesto currently in stock. Would you like me to take you there?" It almost seems too obvious t…

I already choose grocery stores with ample self checkout, which is so much better to me than waiting in line then interacting with a clerk. I for one welcome our robot service providers.
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