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Business

The robot workforce is not coming. It’s already here




Sprinkles has added kiosks to its bakeries across the country, allowing customers to place their own orders and help handle the company’s increase in online orders.

Ashley Haguewood

When customers buy a cupcake at a Sprinkles bakery, they no longer line up at the checkout. Instead, they type into a tablet, swipe a credit card and wait for an employee to pick up an order.

The kiosk system ̵[ads1]1; which the cupcake chain began testing under at the beginning of the pandemic – first allowed social distancing. It now helps the Austin, Texas-based company keep pace with increased online orders in a tight labor market where new employees are difficult to find and retain. The 20 locations will have kiosks in early January, Justin said Murakami, Senior Vice President of Operations at Sprinkles.

To cope with these changing times, retailers and restaurants are stepping up investments in robots and other technology. Walgreens is moving to automation to fill prescriptions, while Sprinkles and Starbucks are moving to replace boxes with tablets. Elsewhere, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club uses robots to scrub store floors and scan fixtures in some locations, and restaurant chains such as Buffalo Wild Wings and White Castle are testing robots that can turn burgers or make chicken wings.

Molly Harnischfeger, director of the consumer insight team at AlixPartners, said companies feel more pressure when they struggle to find workers and pay higher wages. In addition, she said, shoppers and diners, impatient with long waiting periods and other consequences of staff shortages, are becoming more open to robots and other technology.

“When customers have been to restaurants, [and] is … [not] able to get the level of service they expect and the convenience they expect, the story changes a bit in their acceptance of this. “

They are looking to “get their products faster, whether it’s a robot delivering their order at a retailer, whether it’s self – check out, whether it’s their plates coming from the kitchen on a robot server,” she said. “Everyone is feeling the crunch that is consuming right now.”

She said that many restaurants quietly increased technology budgets and started pilots with robotics and artificial intelligence in the second half of the year – a trend she expects to continue in 2022.

“You’re really on the edge of this technological information for the restaurant industry,” she said.

Persistent work crisis

Wholesale and restaurant have long been associated with high turnover and low wages. But with fewer workers now and on the horizon, industries are raising wages, providing benefits and even offering sign-up bonuses to recruit new employees.

Ron Hetrick, senior economist for labor market insights firm Emsi Burning Glass, said the labor shortage would survive the pandemic. Many baby boomers retired early, and some opted out of industries with higher levels of interpersonal interactions or opted for a job that allowed teleworking due to childcare challenges.

Digital orders have also resulted in the need to complete new tasks such as moving items off the shelves for pick-up in advance, or preparing takeaway orders and more – meaning they need more employees, not fewer.

Scrubbing the floor, filling recipes

Cleaning robots scrub the floors of some grocery stores and the Sam’s Club. The software, created by Brain Corp., can also scan inventory shelves.

Brain Corp.

Inside Sam’s Club stores, robots clean the floors. These robotic scrubbers are powered by software created by Brain Corp., which counts airports, hospitals and shopping malls among its customers. In some places, Sam’s Club tests an attachment with a camera that scans inventory and can flag if employees need to refill inventory or rearrange a shelf.

Through the pandemic, the member-based club has encouraged customers to use a Scan & Go app to skip queues and check out purchases on their smartphones while shopping in the hallways.

The Walmart-owned chain has nearly 600 stores and around 100,000 employees. Through a spokeswoman, the retailer said it had no problems finding employees, but recently raised its minimum wage to $ 15 – a recognition of a more competitive market.

At Walgreens, some prescription bottles are filled at centralized, automated hubs – instead of being filled by an employee by hand in a store. The company acquired a majority stake in iA, a pharmaceutical completion technology company, in January.

The pharmacy chain has already opened a facility in Phoenix and Dallas, which helps fill prescriptions for 550 pharmacies. It plans to operate 11 of the centers in the United States by the end of 2022.

Both Sam’s Club and Walgreens say that automation frees up time for employees to help customers instead of spending hours on everyday tasks such as washing floors, staffing boxes or counting pills.

Josh Braylin, vice president of product and marketing for Brain Corp., said companies need to become smarter about how they use their workforce. It means looking for monotonous tasks with low value to automate – an approach that both saves money and makes jobs more fun.

“A robot can do the repetitive, tedious job while the same worker either goes and talks to customers to provide more customer service or potentially cleans other areas of the store that may need more attention,” he said.

The use of robots powered by Brain Corps software has increased. The company said the amount of square feet covered by these autonomous robots increased by 40% in retail, 69% at airports and 113% at shopping malls from October 1.

Rina Shah, executive vice president of pharmacy operations and services at Walgreens, said the chain opened its prescription filling centers at an opportune time.

With the pandemic, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians have increased the patient treatment side of their tasks. They take Covid-19 tests and vaccines along with filling out prescriptions and answering questions about medications. Even beyond the health crisis, Walgreens was looking to turn stores into health destinations with doctors’ offices and other medical services.

“We have a lot more work to do and opportunities ahead of us than we have ever had before because of the pandemic,” Shah said.

At the cupcake chain Sprinkles, self-checkout kiosks are now part of the offer for job candidates, who can be nervous about calling customer orders in person while throwing cupcakes in boxes for online orders, Murakami said. He described the tablets as a “stress relief” for employees.

“We let them know that this is not just for the guests. This is also for the team,” he said. “This actually helps to create an efficient, organized environment so that you can come in and not have the pressure to do it in a way like an assembly line.”

– CNBC Nate Rattner contributed to this story.



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