Walmart’s multibillion-dollar push to replace human workers with robots is reportedly hitting snags as the machinery struggles to carry dog food and Thanksgiving turkeys or handle cardboard boxes.
A simple task called “breakpack” – when workers remove items from cardboard boxes to ship out individually – is easy for Walmart’s more than 140,000 warehouse workers, who also unload trucks, operate forklifts, sort and store goods on shelves, and send out shipments.
But it’s a challenge for the new warehouse robots, which are too small to carry and unload the same cardboard boxes, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
It might sound like a simple fix – replace the boxes. And that’s what Walmart is planning to do. But the largest retail chain in the world has been using the same cardboard boxes for more than two decades, urging workers to reuse the boxes to save on costs.
Now Walmart is planning to throw all those boxes – which cost an average of $1 each – in the trash, replacing them with new ones that are 1 ½ inches shorter and need to be taped closed, a new step that will cost more money, the report said.
Philip McIlrath, the manager of an Indiana apparel warehouse using the new boxes, told the Journal it’s “a small change,” but for workers, “it’s changing their daily routine quite a bit.” He argued the new boxes will eventually reduce stocking time, which will lower labor costs.
Walmart did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The small robots, which move on wheels through the warehouses using motion sensors, struggle to hold oversized or heavy items, like turkeys – a problem that emerged a few years ago just ahead of the Thanksgiving rush, the report said.
Workers in a newly-automated grocery warehouse in California noticed that the machine’s robotic arms fumbled large frozen turkeys. It required a shift to nearby grocery warehouses, which helped with turkey shipments to physical stores.
The Brooksville warehouse in Florida, Walmart’s automation test site, is now nearly “fully automated,” according to Rob Montgomery, the head of supply-chain operations at Walmart US overseeing the automation of nearly 200 locations.
About 80% of inventory at Brooksville is moved using automation. But the robotics are still struggling to manage the remaining 20%, which includes heavy objects like large-screen TVs and dog food.
Another issue plaguing the automation rollout is the robots’ finicky tech issues. The bots – made by Symbotic, a Massachusetts robotics company – frequently break down or need maintenance, even from something as minor as dust buildup, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Symbotic said less than 10% of the robots were being fixed at any given time last year, and that percentage has since dropped to about 5%.
“We are kind of in this peak complexity,” Montgomery told the Journal.
In the meantime, automation has driven costs higher, with monthly electric bills at automated grocery facilities reaching $800,000 or more – up from roughly $250,000 a month when operations were mostly manual, the Journal reported, citing an anonymous source.
Walmart expects its spending on automation to peak this year and next, but it also believes the new tech will eventually require fewer warehouse workers, cutting down costs; process more inventory at a faster pace; and limit the frequency of out-of-stock goods.
The company said it will still need human workers for some tasks, like unloading trailers, as well as to work on the robotic systems.
Company executives also said layoffs won’t be necessary because warehouses have such high job turnover.