U.S. retail giant Walmart has announced it is investing in new technology as it looks to modernise its grocery network.
In a statement, the firm said it is building five brand new high-tech perishable distribution centres across the U.S. that have the ability to store double the number of cases and process more than twice the volume of a traditional perishable DC.
The company is also aiming to meet a change in customer shopping habits, requiring retailers to ensure items are on shelves faster than ever before.
How it works
As cases come in from farmers and suppliers, they’re inspected for quality and de-palletized. The cases are then stored in an automated storage system that stretches nearly 80 feet tall and operates in a temperature-controlled environment. When it’s time to build a store order, the system retrieves the cases from storage to begin building store-ready pallets, which are built by department, making them easier to unload at the store.
These intelligently layered pallets – with more fragile items, like eggs or fruit, toward the top – are then wrapped and loaded onto a truck for shipping.
The decision to implement the technology also reflects a broader change where many physically demanding jobs have evolved into roles where workers are instead operating and maintaining high-tech systems.
For example, associates who used to manually stack cases may now work in a high-tech facility as an automation equipment operator and continue growing their career as an automation control center operator, automation technician or automation area manager, Walmart said.
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