Walmart Ends Contract with Robotics Company, Opts for Human Workers Instead | Hacker News Reader

Walmart Ends Contract with Robotics Company, Opts for Human Workers Instead

cnbc.com

11 pointsdsbleia8 comments

To me the idea it roams the floors and is possibly going to be in the way of people seems to be a major issue. I would think that camera technology hanging from the ceiling or on a track could survey each aisle using simple image recognition.

Walmart - the unexpected champion of the people?

Having human workers check for out of stock items when they are walking the store doing things normally does seem a lot more cost effective than the robots I've seen in store.

Walmart dances on the same floor as FAANG, just a different dance.

The main reason their monopolistic practices have been tolerated is the sheer number of employees they have. If they reduce that number too much, no amount of campaign contributions will keep them safe.

There is no clear explanation why they do this in the article.

I have a theory. I am just guessing, but having watched their robot in action, I can say it is a slow, clunky bot that can't likely be used when restocking shelves, as people get in the way. If you block its path, it stops and sounds an alarm. They were using it when customers were in the store and it had the same problem. Customers get in the way and it sounds an alarm, the recalibrates it's path. If I had to guess, they are probably holding out for something smaller, faster, more agile. There could be other factors. No idea how much that thing costs.

Very reasonable guess, at the end of the day, these jobs will finally replaced by robot, like it or not.

Yea I think that's correct because pandemic shifted priorities for Walmart, autonomous solutions aren't yet good enough to completely replace human workers. Online orders spiked which left human employees with more free time so they were moved to storage and inventories to fulfill online orders and pickup orders.

WSJ reported it good: "As more shoppers flock to online delivery and pickup because of Covid-19 concerns, Walmart has more workers walking the aisles frequently to collect online orders, gleaning new data on inventory problems." [1]

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-shelves-plan-to-have-ro...

Tracking sensors embedded in shelves sound even better.

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