Walmart Is Rolling Out Robots To Manage Store Activities In Battle With Amazon

This is, for now, more about operational efficiency and competitiveness than cost cutting. Though once whatever gains are to be had have been established, that is sure to follow. JL


Sarah Nassauer and Chip Cutter report in the Wall Street Journal:

Walmart is spending to battle Amazon and serve more shoppers buying online. Walmart has hired 40,000 store workers to pick groceries from shelves to fulfill online orders. The company is also raising wages, adding worker training, and buying e-commerce startups. “None of the customers we’re working with are using our machines to reduce their labor costs; they’re using them to allow their teams, their janitorial teams, to perform higher-value tasks.”
Walmart is expanding its use of robots in stores to help monitor inventory, clean floors and unload trucks, part of the retail giant’s efforts to control labor costs as it spends more to raise wages and offer new services like online grocery delivery.
The country’s largest private employer said at least 300 stores this year will add machines that scan shelves for out-of-stock products. Autonomous floor scrubbers will be deployed in 1,500 stores to help speed up cleaning, after a test in hundreds of stores last year. And the number of conveyor belts that automatically scan and sort products as they come off trucks will more than double, to 1,200.

The company said the addition of a single machine can cut a few hours a day of work previously done by a human, or allow Walmart to allocate fewer people to complete a task, a large saving when spread around 4,600 U.S. stores. Executives said they are focused on giving workers more time to do other tasks, and on hiring in growing areas like e-commerce.
Instead, Walmart is spending to battle Amazon.com Inc. and serve more shoppers buying online. Walmart has hired around 40,000 store workers to pick groceries from shelves to fulfill online orders. The company is also raising wages, adding worker training, and buying e-commerce startups.
Store workers spend two to three hours a day driving a floor scrubber through a store using the manual machines, said a company spokesman last year. The automatic conveyor belts cut the number of workers needed to unload trucks by half, from around eight to four workers, said executives at a company presentation last June.
“With automation we are able to take away some of the tasks that associates don’t enjoy doing,” said Mark Propes, senior director of central operations for Walmart US. “At the same time we continue to open up new jobs in other things in the store.”
An additional 900 stores will also get 16-foot-high towers that let shoppers pick up online orders without interacting with a human.
Brain Corp. makes the software powering Walmart’s autonomous floor scrubbers. The robotic technology is meant to be an “operational partner” to workers, said Phil Duffy, vice president of innovation. Most maintenance employees spend only part of their shifts cleaning floors, so the autonomous scrubber frees them to do other jobs, he said.
“It’s very hard for employers to get the workforce they need,” Mr. Duffy said. “None of the customers we’re working with are using our machines to reduce their labor costs; they’re using them to allow their teams, their janitorial teams, to perform higher-value tasks.”Retailers and other companies that hire large numbers of low-skilled hourly workers are increasingly looking to automation as they face higher labor costs and aim to improve retention amid the lowest unemployment in decades. Target Corp. added machines to count cash to backrooms of stores last year, following a similar move by Walmart.
Last week Target said it has raised starting wages for store
workers to $13 an hour and has previously said it will raise starting wages to $15 next year. Last month, Costco Wholesale Corp. raised starting wages for U.S. and Canadian store workers to $15. Amazon did the same for U.S. workers last year.
Walmart raised starting wages for store workers to $11 last year. Executives said at a recent investor conference that Walmart is keeping wages competitive by store and market.