Walmart recently made headlines by laying off robots and replacing them with human beings. 500 Bossa Nova shelf scanners lost their jobs…leading to substantial layoffs at Bossa Nova.
But Walmart is expanding its warehouse robots program. The Alphabots, self-driving shopping carts that can whiz around a warehouse picking out small items and bringing them to humans, were tested in Northeastern stores a few years ago.
Now, with the pandemic keeping shoppers out of stores, they’ve come into their own.
Shopping changes
Walmart used to want to get people into the stores. Retailtainment was supposed to make shoppers enjoy their forays into local Supercenters, where they could be counted on to buy more than the items they had on their lists.
With the pandemic, shopping in crowded stores became a high-risk activity. People shifted to online shopping and brick-and-click curbside pickup. Already nervous shoppers were creeped out by six foot tall robots prowling the aisles.
But robotic warehouser workers make perfect sense. They can help human workers get quick turnaround for store pickup. And they can’t catch COVID-19. Scrubbing robots are good, too. People respond to these helpful robots much more positively.
Coping with the pandemic
Walmart is paying attention and responding to changing needs. Your company can do the same.
If your production is still limited, this is a good time to do some maintenance. Contact us and we’ll make factory repair and reman easy for you.
If you’re working flat out, we have the nation’s largest selection of emergency replacement units. Let us know what you need and we’ll ship it to you with 24 hour turnaround.
As Rexroth specialists, we can help with any Rexroth or Indramat units, from legacy components to the latest drive and control solutions.