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Walmart switches off plan to use robots to track inventory

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Robots had taken the role of tracking inventory at several Walmart stores, but the company is reversing its decision, instead, it is replacing technology with humans.

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Walmart had rolled out robots at about 500 stores to test the customer experience and make employees jobs easier, Reuters reported.

The robots used cameras to scan for items that were out of stock or misplaced, The Associated Press reported.

News of the change was first reported Monday by The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper reported Walmart has ended the contract it entered with Bossa Nova Robotics Inc.

Bossa Nova Robotics supplied Walmart with six-foot-tall inventory scanning machines to stores over the past five years in an effort to reduce labor costs and increase sales, The Wall Street Journal reported.

But the coronavirus pandemic had more employees walking the aisles, fulfilling online orders, and at the same time tracking inventory issues.

Shoppers also did not embrace the idea of robots doing the jobs of humans.

But not all robots are going away at Walmarts. There will still be floor scrubbing automation used to clean the store aisles.

Due to the deal being canceled, Bossa Nova Robotics, which started at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in 2005, laid off about 50% of its staff but are trying to find new clients and ventures, The Wall Street Journal reported.

As for Walmart, the company said it will still test new technology and invest in its own process and apps for inventory tracking, Reuters reported.

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