Melissa Repko of CNBC reports that Walmart is opening five automated distribution centers for fresh food across the country. She writes:
Walmart said Wednesday that it will open five automated distribution centers for fresh food across the country, as the retailer chases efficiency and its online grocery business grows.
The discounter’s new facilities are roughly 700,000 square feet on average. Chilled and frozen areas have automation that stores and retrieves perishable items, such as strawberries and frozen chicken nuggets that are later sold at stores or added to customers’ e-commerce orders.
Walmart is the nation’s largest grocer, but it is modernizing its supply chain to keep up with customers who are increasingly picking up orders in the parking lot or getting groceries delivered to their doors. Store pickup and delivery drove the company’s 22% e-commerce gains in the U.S. in its most recent quarter. […]
But he added Walmart expects to increase productivity without hiring at the same pace as in the past. The roles it needs will change, too, he said. For example, it may need fewer people on the warehouse floor and more people to drive trucks in its fleet.
That will also be the case at the automated distribution centers for groceries, he said. Workers in the company’s traditional facilities act as “industrial athletes,” lifting hundreds of cases per hour and walking many miles each day. At the new facilities, he said, they play the part of supervisor.
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