Robots gaining shelf life
Say goodbye to the stock clerk.
Tokyo-based Telexistence is installing restocking robots in 300 Japanese grocery stores, and plans to bring them to the US.
Amid a labor shortage in Japan, the robots, called TX SCARA, will be used to restock bottles and cans in refrigerated shelves. They can handle a pace of about 1,000 items a day, the equivalent of one to three hours every day of human work.
One of Japan’s largest grocery chains, FamilyMart, with some 16,000 stores, inked a deal with Telexistence to test the technology, it was announced Tuesday.
“The decline in Japan’s labor population is one of the key management issues for FamilyMart,” said general manager of store operations Tomohiro Kano.
The robots handle repetitive motions, but “in rare instances” if they miscalculate or an item falls, Telexistence employees can control the bot using virtual-reality glasses, the company said.