Supply Chain Management Review

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The Grocery Store of the Future
December 17, 2007

There's an interesting eight-minute video found here that says a lot about the future of materials handling. True, it's not a warehouse - it's a grocery store. Still, it's been said that technology filters down into "everyday" hands as soon as it gets cheap enough. 

If that's true, much of what you see in this stylish 3-D video will surely be in stores before long. Warehouses have been known to use much of this automated technology already. The video, which has a relatively quiet soundtrack with no narration or loud sound effects (perfect for viewing in the office without headphones), depicts a "Grocery Store of the Future," and how a customer decides what to buy, finds it, and pays for it. 

By far the most interesting and potentially realistic item is the virtual shopping list. Customers can actually make up a list at home and send it to the store online. At the store, individual carriages have tiny card readers and bar code scanners that customers use to identify themselves, call up their virtual list, and check items off it when scanning items they pick up off the shelf and put in their carts. Not only does this sound convenient for the comsumer (who hasn't forgotten the grocery list at home at least once?), but this mirrors existing warehouse technology I've seen in action. It's not everywhere, but more and more warehouses are considering, if not using, some form of portable scanning device to keep up with what's on their pallet loader, and what's left on the shelf. It's interesting to see a rendition of this technology geared toward the end consumer, and while there's no description available in the video of how the technology works, I have no doubt someone will be designing ERP or a similar form of software to monitor stockouts and handle replenishment for this futuristic grocery store.

In some cases, the video seems a bit far-fetched, showing RFID tagging on the item level. First off, experts I've talked to for an upcoming article in Supply Chain Management Review insist item-level tagging won't be happening on items as inexpensive as groceries, not now and probably not ever. Further, I find it hard to imagine working parents with several children at home stopping at the door to remove each and every individual item from two (yes, I've seen that many) carriages chock-full of stuff, and individually scan them to deactivate the tags, like the smiling virtual customer does in the video. In fact, it looks more like the RFID item-level warehouse tagging I saw in a company's promotional video months back. That was the only place I've ever seen this used in a warehouse setting, further convincing me that we won't be seeing this done with cereal boxes or detergent.

However, much of the video is convincing, even showing the "customer of the future" actually paying in cash (ok, she's paying in Euros, but viewers who don't live in Europe will get the idea). Overall, it's a neat reminder of where warehouse technology is now, and where it's likely to be heading.

Posted by Sean Murphy on December 17, 2007 | Comments (3)