The idea of stores staffed by robots in various businesses has been gaining popularity in recent years. Robots can perform tasks quickly and efficiently, without requiring breaks or time off, and they can help reduce costs for business owners.
However, it’s worth noting that robots cannot replace human interaction entirely, and businesses still need to provide good customer service and experience to keep customers coming back.
An ice-cream parlour at Melbourne’s federation square is staffed by three robots.
The robots are named Pepper, Eka and Tony. Tony has two arms and a screen that appears as a “face”.
A team of ABB engineers worked to bring into reality a new retail experience for customers.
The process is simple. It all starts with a touch screen. The customer selects the number of scoops, chooses the flavours and toppings and the robots do the rest.
Pepper is a talking humanoid robot concierge. It can tell you all about the ice-cream, help you make your selection, track eye contact, simulate emotion and hold simple conversations. It can also dance and pose for selfies with customers.
Tony is a robot responsible for delicate tasks such as topping your ice-cream in hot chocolate sauce or sprinkles. Tony wears a tiny custom bowtie designed by Jacqui Sale – a look inspired by staff uniforms in 1950s ice-cream parlours – and has an LED screen for a face.
Eka is a robotic arm designed for efficient scooping. While this may sound like a simple task, Eka has seven different axes equipped with sensors and programmed with different scooping motions depending on the level of ice-cream in the container.
It’s just another example of robots serving up convenience. Automation in the retail sector is nothing new. E-commerce giant Amazon has been using robots to help with workflow for quite some time. A “smart home” in Zurich was built mostly using 3D printers and robots.
The use of robots in the service industry is an interesting development and is something that we may see more of in the future.
So, should we be worried about robots eventually stealing our jobs?
A 2019 survey by recruitment agency Hays, found that 18% of Aussie workers have already had their job impacted significantly by robots, with their duties changing or their role becoming redundant. Another 32% said their role had been impacted partially, with some tasks automated.
Adam Gregory from Linked-In says that automation and the ability to work with robots actually presents a huge opportunitiy for employers and employees… “Robots can take on the most mundane tasks, freeing up the workforce to do more creative and more complex work. In fact, in industries like manufacturing, robots can take on the more high-risk tasks, thus providing a safer work environment.”
But in the future, it will be the robot’s biggest weakness that will be our biggest selling point… “soft skills” like communication, influence and problem solving. Adam says that “In fact, 91%of HR professionals indicate that these “soft skills” will be the most in demand skills in the future”.
The company, Niska, is looking to extend robotic servers into other areas of retail.
Today, their company, Starship Technologies, has offices around the world and its delivery robots have travelled over 200,000 miles delivering over 50,000 orders in many neighbourhoods and on university campuses. At George Mason University, its fleet of 25 robots makes it the largest robot food delivery service on a university campus.
