Robots Enabling Farm-to-Fridge Revolution

If you are a student at the University of Tulsa (TU) in the U.S. and are in the mood for a breakfast bagel, a café latte, a burger or hot wings, you can have an on-demand robot bring it right up to your door.

The University is the location for a delivery initiative by U.S. company Starship Technologies, which has rolled out a fleet of 15 autonomous robots. They are currently delivering food from seven campus eateries to a student and faculty population of 5,000 people. 

To get started, users open the Starship Deliveries app, choose from a range of food or drink items and then drop a pin to where they want their delivery to be sent. They can then watch via an interactive map as the robot makes its journey. 

Once the robot arrives, they receive an alert and can then meet and unlock it through the app. The delivery usually takes only minutes, depending on the items ordered and the distance the robot must travel. Each robot can carry the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods.

“TU is known as a high-tech university, so there’s no reason our dining options shouldn’t offer high-tech service,” said university president Brad R. Carson. “We recently installed robot lawnmowers on campus to maintain our large green spaces in a quiet and environmentally friendly manner. The Starship robot food delivery service is a convenient amenity that aligns with the TU brand.”

Starship Technologies operates commercially daily around the world. Its zero-emission robots have made more than 4 million autonomous deliveries, traveled millions of miles and made more than 140,000 road crossings every day. 

The robots use a combination of sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles. Computer vision-based navigation helps the robots to map their environment to the nearest inch. 

The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night and operate in rain and snow. A team of humans can also monitor their progress remotely and can take control at a moment’s notice.

So while drones on the air and robots on the ground might be the most consumer-facing devices in the retail robot revolution, they are by no means the only ones. The industry is seeing a wave of robotics implementations ticking several boxes around sustainability, cost, convenience and customer experience.

There’s also a solid economic imperative. Labor markets are tight, wages are increasing, and consumers are spending less. In this environment, an investment in automation increasingly stacks up as a long-term way to achieve savings and drive productivity and efficiency. 

Playing catch up

According to MarketWatch, the global retail automation market was valued at USD8.96 billion in 2016 and is forecast to be worth USD23.1 billion by the end of 2024. Much of the retail robot market uses artificial intelligence, with the AI robot market expected to be worth USD52.6 billion by 2031. 

While the industrial sector was the early leader in robot implementation, retail is now playing catch-up. Global installations of industrial robots grew 31% in 2021 year-on-year, while sales of service robots rose 37%, with the retail sector a significant driver of both, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

"We're at a stage where technology is getting better and cheaper, and the case for automation in some of those areas just becomes much more compelling”

The robots dropping off the hot wings in the student dorms are highly visible. But behind the scenes, robots and AI are busily aggregating and analyzing data, improving inventory and warehouse management, and ensuring brand compliance. 

"We're at a stage where technology is getting better and cheaper, and the case for automation in some of those areas just becomes much more compelling," said Anita Balchandani, who leads McKinsey’s consumer practice in Britain, told Reuters recently.

McKinsey expects fashion companies to double investment in technology from 1.6% to 1.8% of their revenue in 2021 to between 3.0% and 3.5% by 2030.

One key advantage for retailers such as those in the fashion industry is time to market. McKinsey says automating digital processes could help drive an 8% rise in the sales of full-price goods and a 20% drop in manufacturing costs.

Farm-to-fridge future

The ultimate vision is for the automation of the entire retail supply chain.

British company Ocado, for example, offers automated warehouses and lightweight robots and is involved in implementations around the developed world. 

In Australia, Ocado has a AUD150 million partnership with leading grocery chain Coles, which includes two automated centralized fulfillment centers. The projection is that the partnership can boost online sales by AUD1 billion, double Coles’ home-delivery capacity and reduce the company’s cost-to-serve.

Coles’ Australian rival Woolworths is also investing in robot fulfillment but using a different model, using micro packing centers rather than larger centralized facilities as used by Coles.

There is an argument about which one is more effective. The micro model is faster for the last mile, but the centralized one has scale and efficiency.

As that debate continues, Starship Technologies’ robots continue to increase their global footprint alongside other automated delivery couriers. 

When one comes to your door, you may be the first human your meal has had contact with since the farmer waved the ingredients goodbye at the farm gate.

Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their entire business models. You can reach him at [email protected].

Image credit: iStockphoto/gmast3r