Working in a grocery store means juggling a lot of tasks at once. Whether it is stacking shelves, helping customers find eggs, or answering a Tannoy alert for a spillage in another aisle, supermarket employees are often pulled in multiple directions.
It is no surprise to see this translate to more unfilled vacancies – up 30% on pre-pandemic figures in Europe according to McKinsey. For retailers, help is needed… and is on the way.
According to the same McKinsey report, the grocery worker of 2030 will spend 17% less time doing physical and manual tasks, and 32% more time using social and emotional skills, thanks in part to robotic assistants.
Clionadh Martin, founder of automation firm Coalescent Mobile Robotics spoke to TI at TechBBQ about how its robots are taking on the overnight hours and daytime shifts to ease employee physical demands.
“I worked with mobile robots at my previous company, and I had a friend working unsocial hours restocking at a supermarket, moving trolleys from midnight to 8 AM, with not great pay or breaks,” Martin explains.
“It seemed like the perfect task for a robot – repetitive, heavy lifting, and not motivating for people.”
In 2018, Martin founded Coalescent Mobile Robotics in Denmark, where it has since developed robots to help with these tasks, building the hardware and the software in-house.
The robots come with three skills under their belt: automated restocking of shelves, collecting products for online orders, and collecting baskets – although, these robots can be customised for other use cases if needed.
The robots come fitted with 3D cameras, laser scanners, and various internal sensors in order to carry out their tasks. They’re trained to know the shop floor inside-out. Plus, they can either be connected through Wi-Fi or a private network, as each comes with a SIM card.
“We developed everything ourselves because appearance matters in retail environments,” says Martin. “Our robots have bright colours and adapt well to operate around people.”
Essentially, the robots take to the shop floor and can carry out tasks such as pushing 180kg trolleys for restocking and filling online orders – reducing the need to push and pull heavy trolleys.
Martin explains that the robots help not only tackle challenges such as taking over undesirable tasks, but also address labour shortages, particularly with an ageing population.
On top of this, the technology can guide customers in finding products as they’re trained to know the shop floor, and consistently ensure shelves are always stocked with what they need.
Coalescent is currently working with Denmark’s largest retailer, Salling Group, to support Bilka hypermarket’s click-and-collect service. Plus, although names could not revealed yet, the firm is in talks to work with UK retailers, too.
Having been in the robotics game for 15 years, American firm Brain Corp has over 37,000 robots operating in public space using its software.
For retail, Brain Corp’s robots can help with inventory management and remote site management, but many of its robots are used to clean, and they are becoming increasingly automated.
Michel Spruijt, president of Brain Corp says: “Five years ago, when I started at Brain Corp, the focus was on questions like, ‘Are you taking jobs from people?’”
“I tried to explain that AI is here to stay and it’s better to embrace it. Then Covid hit, and cleaning became a priority while retailers struggled to hire staff and people came to see robots as a way to take the dull, repetitive tasks rather than as job stealers,” he says.
Working with the likes of Walmart, Brain Corp’s robotic onboarding software will see its technology map out the store, and staff trained on how to use the robot’s “easy-to-use” user face.
Most stores choose to deploy the cleaner bots at night, according to Spruijt, as there are typically less customers, but this is up to the retailers.
“Once you’ve taught the machine, we have an app where you can see its performance based on square metres cleaned, how many assists it needed, and where your issue points are where you need to optimise your route,” he explains.
“At the end of the day, we want them to make the machine smarter and optimise it in the maximum way possible.”
The app also offers simple insights such as how much battery is on the machine, and with the addition of an inventory scanner, the robots can also keep track of stock levels and product localisation.
Spruijt adds that employees are still necessary as a robot can’t fill itself with cleaning liquid, for example, and maintenance checks and replacing brushes are still necessary.
“We had a test in the Netherlands with a retailer that implemented a store with no staff, allowing customers to use only self-checkouts, but it didn’t quite drive the behaviour they were looking for,” says Spruijt. “People still needed human interaction.”
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