Retail Customer Experience: Witron system aims to fully automate shelf replenishment
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is an excerpt of a current article from Retail Customer Experience, a daily news portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate the shopping experience.
If there is anything more frustrating to a customer than an empty shelf, perhaps it is tripping over the employee who is cutting open case boxes of products and trying to fill that shelf. Both headaches would become distant memories if the German logistics company Witron is successful with its new SRS, or Shelf Replenishment System.
"A lot of grocery stores are open 24 hours, so when do you really get to replenish the shelves?" asked Brian Sherman, business development manager for Witron, which develops and deploys automated warehouse picking solutions for Kroger, Supervalu and others. "Sometimes there are stock-outs during the day and you need to get people to replenish, and now you're in the way of the shoppers. We say, let machines do the replenishing, and do it from the backside."
The SRS uses an intricate
series of conveyor belts, lifts and sensors to bring products out of the
backroom, up into the air, across the store, then down behind the appropriate
shelf. Once the products are lined up with their shelf, another conveyor
belt kicks in to push them forward, which in turn pushes the boxes and
cans already on the shelf to the front - in effect, causing all products
to be perfectly faced at all times.
An employee in the back room receives a notification when a certain item has fallen below a predetermined stock level; he then retrieves the needed quantity of that product, scans it, then puts it into the conveyor system. The product is delivered and stocked, invisible to any shoppers that might be in the aisle.
Obviously, such a system will never be right for a whole store - big bags of dog food and fresh produce will always need to be stocked by human hands.
"But when you're talking canned goods, cereals, even drink products - these types of things have good stability, they won't tip over, they won't get messy or break," said Mr. Sherman. "I'd estimate maybe half of the store might be applicable for this." Two major European supermarkets are considering test installations of the system.
He said he sees potential for the technology in small and discount retailers - like shoe stores or small apparel stores, for instance - which usually have only one or two people working at any given time. "These types of stores have very disorganized back rooms, so we would be able to make it a very efficient back room," he said. "One person puts the product on the machine, and then he doesn't have to be walking a cart or a pallet through the aisles."
Despite some concerns expressed by observers about ROI, the complexity involved, and its usefulness across retail formats, Witron is optimistic.
"This is still a dream, but we're hoping," Mr. Sherman said. "We've been able to pull off miracles before."
Discussion questions: What's the likelihood that automatic shelf replenishment will one day be a major inventory fill-in tool for retailers? What concerns would you have over the technology and its relevance for retail?