Move along chaffeurs, the robots are here!

27 Sep 2016 POSTED BY Gururag Kalanidhi

In the area of Retail chain, especially the food and household supplies market, robotics as a concept has made massive strides. The industry has reached a point of progress where it is prudent to look at not how robots will drive business transformation, but at how they are already doing so.

Most jobs in the retail industry which involved dexterity and careful human handling are now being taken over by robots; robots that can be described as sophisticated, smart and functional. But what they miss out in anthropomorphic appeal, they more than make up for it in their capabilities.

In the past few years robots have become adept in adapting themselves to the retail environments and lend a helping hand to the workforce that works in tandem with them.

When we say robots are helping out, we do not talk of robots that look like ancestors of C3-PO and walk around and talking part in errands. No, we are talking of the kind that is more like an R2; functional and built with purpose.

Following are some examples where robots have already begun to make their presence felt:

Fulfillment of deliveries in restaurants:

Robots like Pepper the robot have started appearing at restaurants all across the globe. These are now replacing manual labour in mundane tasks such as delivery of food entree’ to customers. This has helped the restaurant chains cut back on inefficiencies and help them enhance their customer service

Helping consumers in industrial scale super markets

As recently as December, Lowe’s introduced a robotic assistant in its stores. Called the LoweBot, will be deployed to 11 stores to help guide home improvers to find items in store. This robot can speak multiple languages and help consumers their way around these stores.

Making sky the limit to cut back on delivery timelines.

When we talk about robots, we should also factor in the thousands of drones that buzz around the airspaces of major city. When industry majors like Domino’s collaborate with relatively unknowns to airdrop pizza boxes out of the sky, it only reiterates the role robotics have played in easing the lives of consumers and industry planners around the world.

All these drive home the fact that robots are becoming a ubiquitous component of our consumerism driven lives.

Happy Roboting!