Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
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Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
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Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#2Notable that the reasons for failure to meet benchmarks was that the locations were too far away, and that they are moving to the “Micro-Fulfillment Center” approach that Amazon is doing at Whole Foods. This is exactly what everyone predicted when Amazon bought WF - turn it into a grocery FC.
That makes sense to me.
Feels like we’re going to have warehouse scale vending machines in cities, and delivery bots taking them from the warehouse-vending-machine to the customer.
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#3Sounds like they just put them in the wrong places.
> Fenyo added that Kroger’s decision to locate the Ocado centers outside of cities turned out to be a key flaw.
> “Ultimately those were hard places to make this model work,” said Fenyo. “You didn’t have enough people ordering, and you had a fair amount of distance to drive to get the orders to them. And so ultimately, these large centers were just not processing enough orders to pay for all that technology investment you had to make.”
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#4Notable that the reasons for failure to meet benchmarks was that the locations were too far away, and that they are moving to the “Micro-Fulfillment Center” approach that Amazon is doing at Whole Foods. This is exactly what everyone predicted when Amazon bought WF - turn it into a grocery FC. That makes sense to me. Feels like we’re going to have warehouse scale vending machines in cities, and delivery bots taking th…
I like being able to see the thing I'm going to get and holding it in my hand.
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#5Good news for blue collar workers, tough for investors. The bean-counting dream of LLM's and Robotics remains, but until ChatGPT is placing your order at Mcdonalds drive-thrus and Amazon is laying off warehouse associates en masse, i'd say that last 5% is still taking 95% of the time.
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#6I remember a glowing video about this thing (by Tom Scott maybe?) and being confused how it could ever compete with humans being paid slave wages.
Guess I was right.
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#7Sounds like they just put them in the wrong places. > Fenyo added that Kroger’s decision to locate the Ocado centers outside of cities turned out to be a key flaw. > “Ultimately those were hard places to make this model work,” said Fenyo. “You didn’t have enough people ordering, and you had a fair amount of distance to drive to get the orders to them. And so ultimately, these large centers were just not processing en…
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Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#8Having FCs an hour away from your customers, packing groceries into a tiny truck with one or two employees per truck, the trucks alone would never pay for themselves let alone the FCs. This was obvious from the get go and it’s why Walmart has been the only one successfully doing grocery pickup and delivery for 6 years. Every store is an FC and they’re all within 20 minutes of their customers.
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#9Notable that the reasons for failure to meet benchmarks was that the locations were too far away, and that they are moving to the “Micro-Fulfillment Center” approach that Amazon is doing at Whole Foods. This is exactly what everyone predicted when Amazon bought WF - turn it into a grocery FC. That makes sense to me. Feels like we’re going to have warehouse scale vending machines in cities, and delivery bots taking th…
I'll believe it when i see it
Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
#10Notable that the reasons for failure to meet benchmarks was that the locations were too far away, and that they are moving to the “Micro-Fulfillment Center” approach that Amazon is doing at Whole Foods. This is exactly what everyone predicted when Amazon bought WF - turn it into a grocery FC. That makes sense to me. Feels like we’re going to have warehouse scale vending machines in cities, and delivery bots taking th…
I like being able to see the thing I'm going to get and holding it in my hand.
I like not going to the store more.
Because tips are important to the income of delivery shoppers, I find that I generally get good produce selections. It might be difficult to transition that particular incentive to robots, but the point is that delivery items don't have to suck.
The only thing I really still pick out by hand every time are beef briskets. Pork shoulders tend to be uniform enough that randomly picking a cryovac works out, but there's a good bit of variation in brisket that makes a difference with the final product, at least when the brisket is prepared with a smoker. YMMV