Membership warehouse Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart Inc., has rolled out a national robotic inventory scan in partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) company Brain Corp and Tennant Company, according to a Thursday (Jan. 27) company announcement.
“By adding Inventory Scan to our current fleet of robotic scrubbers, we obtain critical inventory data that previously was time consuming to obtain,” Todd Garner, VP of In Club Product Management at Sam’s Club, said in the announcement.
“This intelligence allows us to proactively manage our clubs in an efficient manner,” he said.
Inventory Scan “assures items are available and easy to locate in the club, freeing up time for our associates to focus on members and the shopping experience they deserve,” said Garner.
The new scanning accessory, powered by Brain Corp’s AI operating system BrainOS, will be fitted to the almost 600 autonomous floor scrubbers already being used at Sam’s Club stores across the U.S. The new, cloud-connected Inventory Scan tower captures data as it moves around the club.
Inventory Scan provides verification of pricing accuracy, planogram compliance, product stock levels and product localization.
“This latest iteration of our valued and longstanding partnership with Sam’s Club marks the beginning of realizing the next phase in our company’s vision,” said Dr. Eugene Izhikevich, CEO of Brain Corp, in the announcement.
“We are actively taking BrainOS-powered robots from primarily task-oriented machines, to in-store data acquisition platforms, able to deliver actionable insights on inventory availability, planogram compliance and more,” he said. “This adds significant ROI for retailers.”
Meanwhile, Pizza Hut now has a fully automated location at a mall in Bnei Dror, Israel, according to a video shared on LinkedIn by Hyper Food Robotics, the tech company powering the location. Consumers order through kiosks outside the restaurant or through Pizza Hut’s app.
With the current Pizza Hut setup, a server takes the pizzas out of designated cubbies and brings them to customers, but the fully automated model will feature self-service order collection.
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