Robots are coming to food processing!!

Robots are coming to our food processing!!

https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/the-robots-rescuing-our-food-supply-chain/329790/

How about a change of pace today?

I thought this was interesting.

With the lockdown (yes), and with unemployment so high (I don’t understand why that is important here) - robots are moving faster into the food supply chain.

Robots cleaning the floor:

“At supermarkets including Walmart and Kroger, autonomous floor-scrubbing machines are zooming up and down the aisles every night, ensuring the premises are spick-and-span.”

“Every day, we give back 8,000 hours to essential workers to do other stuff, for example … to precision clean, [disinfect] handles, restocking or just taking a break they need, So the robots aren’t doing all the cleaning, they are doing the most monotonous work.”

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One of the robotics features is to do monotonous work!!!  Is this article is right, it might be taking work away from people - but not work that requires much thinking!!!

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How about pulling the weeds?

“FarmWise’s “agribot” Titan is a giant orange robot equipped with artificial intelligence that enables it to identify weeds for removal, helping growers increase their efficiency and extract more yield from their land.”

With the borders shut down, a lot of day farm laborers that used to come in from Mexico are barred from entry with COVID-19.

Depending on how this machine works, it could be a good environment tool.  If it pulls the weeds (instead of spraying them with a herbicide) that could be a good move!!!  (I have pulled enough weeks in my years - how soon and affordable for home gardens?)

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How about robots that can climb stairs to drop packages off.  Deliveries during the virus isolation have been worrisome for people.  Do I open the door and get confronted with a delivery person spreading the virus?  Or visa-versa - do I share my virus germs with a delivery person?  

These can also work for curbside deliveries.  Pull up, pop the trunk latch and the robot will put your groceries, food, products into the trunk for you - no human interactions!!

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A company called “Fetch” has warehouse robots that move things around huge warehouses.  

Aside - like many grocery stores, my local HEB has gone crazy with filling orders.  There are carts in the aisles with human order fillers that are following a check sheet and stacking things on the cart for consumers.  So, eventually a robot can do the fetch part of the order filling process.  (Yes, taking away jobs from people, but not necessarily really important jobs).

Order filling has been a challenge for grocers.  Let’s say that 50% of a community are using the online order filling program.  That means a lot of people are running around the store, pulling items from the shelves.  Unlike robots (who don’t get paid and don’t need sleep or lunch breaks), these humans are getting paid.  So, if I have an order that takes an hour to fill, and the order filler gets $20 an hour, that costs the store an extra $20 that they may not be able to pass on to the consumer.  As a typical grocery shopper, I walk down the aisles, checking the prices, looking at the nutritional information before I pop it into my cart.  But, I’m using my own time.  

The article adds, “Grocers have been slow to adapt to e-groceries because the prospect places them in a Catch-22: Offer online orders and lose money on each sale, or refuse to offer the service and see a chunk of your business fall away to online rivals.”

With millions out of work, it may seem strange to be buying robots at this time - but seemingly the robots are doing more manual and monotonous jobs that even unemployed people don’t want to do!!

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Hmm - just a change of pace for a day!!!

Hugs!!!  (And, I suppose if the robots are sprayed with disinfectant you can hug your favorite robot as well!!!)

Karen