Gap rushes in more robots to warehouses to solve virus disruption

[turbinetree]

Source: Reuters

TECHNOLOGY NEWS MAY 21, 2020 / 6:08 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. apparel chain Gap Inc (GPS.N) is speeding up its rollout of warehouse robots for assembling online orders so it can limit human contact during the coronavirus pandemic, the company told Reuters.

Gap reached a deal early this year to more than triple the number of item-picking robots it uses to 106 by the fall. Then the pandemic struck North America, forcing the company to close all its stores in the region, including those of Banana Republic, Old Navy and other brands. Meanwhile, its warehouses faced more web orders and fewer staff to fulfill them because of social distancing rules Gap had put in place.

“We could not get as many people in our distribution centers safely,” said Kevin Kuntz, Gap’s senior vice president of global logistics fulfillment. So he called up Kindred AI, the vendor that sells the machines, to ask: “Can you get them here earlier?”

Sourcing parts in time for the eight-foot-tall robotic stations was not simple or cheap, said Kindred’s Chief Operating Officer Marin Tchakarov. But the venture-backed startup was able to deploy 10 of them to Gap’s warehouse near Nashville, Tennessee and 20 near Columbus, Ohio, with plans to finish the rollout to four of Gap’s five U.S. facilities by July, months ahead of schedule, he said.

Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; editing by Greg Mitchell and Edward Tobin

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-gap-automation-foc/gap-rushes-in-more-robots-to-warehouses-to-solve-virus-disruption-idUSKBN22X14Y

---

-snip-

And if anyone thinks that the unemployed numbers will go down and people will be called back to work...............well I got a bridge...........a robot is taking 4 peoples jobs away from them, and this is just like when the wall street crowd and banking was touting of making this country into a service based economy in the 80's and 90's which wiped out millions of manufacturing and other related industrial jobs...........

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Americans so obsessed with materialism

they can't rush the robots to work fast enough to enable them to buy more.

Of course my perspective is different, I under consume, buy for durability and value, and prefer solvency to closets full of junk. My storage spaces don't look like a thrift store.

[dalton99a]

2. If what you do can be replaced by software or a robot

It will be replaced by software or a robot

[Massacure]

7. Close

If what you can do can be done by software or a robot cheaper than you can do it, then you will be replaced by the software or robot.

[gab13by13]

3. Is this another company

that got bailout money to keep its workers on the payroll? Looks to me like it used the money to replace workers with robots.

[Igel]

5. If it did there are two outcomes.

1. The money was used to pay salaries. Then Gap doesn't pack it back, it'll be converted over to a grant.

2. The money was used to put robots in place. Then they money remains a loan that has to be paid back and it's just more debt.

There's not a third outcome.

People forget that the PPP is loan money until the accounting at the end is settled. They assume that any money a corporation is given by the government is a gift, just like the assumption they made in 2009.

[KSNY]

4. Where is the Buy Blue site when you need it...?

I have my own list of places I don't buy from (and the Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy have been on it for a while), but we really need to have a web site to support business that treat their workers decently.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Think of the requirements required to maintain the software etc. This isn't exactly the panacea...

of killing jobs as people think it will be. I suspect that the robots will be taken out before long due to too expensive software maintenance issues, sourcing replacement components for the robots when they break down, etc. They also have to change the entire physical plant layout to accept the robots. Costs a lot of money which I am surprised that the GAP can afford...