Robots sold everywhere in Japanese stores

Budrigannews.com – Because Japan has the world’s oldest population, there is a severe labor shortage. Finding workers can be difficult given that almost a third of the population is over the age of 65.

Technology is being used as a solution by more and more businesses, like FamilyMart and Lawson, two of Japan’s largest convenience store franchises.

Lawson started using its first robot this week in a Tokyo convenience store. Last month, FamilyMart put the same robots through a trial, and the company claims that by 2022, it will have them working in 20 of its locations.

Model-T, a robot developed by the Japanese startup Telexistence, is being used by both chains. The robot has cameras, microphones, and sensors and stands seven feet tall when extended to its full height. It moves around on a platform with wheels and is outfitted with them. It has three “fingers” on each of its two hands, allowing it to fill shelves with rice bowls, cans, and bottled beverages.

Matt Komatsu, head of business development and operations at Telexistence, tells, “It is able to grasp, or pick and place, objects of several different shapes and sizes into different locations.”

It stands out from other retail robots like Walmart’s shelf inventory scanner and warehouse box stacking robots because of this. According to Komatsu, warehouse robots “pick up the same thing from the same place and place it on the same platform” and have limited movement compared to ours.

Remotely controlled by shop staff, the Model-T robot is named after the Ford automobile that pioneered assembly line production in the early 20th century. A VR headset and specialized gloves enable a human “pilot” to “feel” the products the robot is holding in their own hands. They can communicate with other customers in the store thanks to headphones and microphones.

The robots and VR systems will be provided for a fee by Telexistence, who does not intend to sell them directly to retailers. It stated that it would be cost-competitive with human labor, but it would not disclose the price.

According to Komatsu, the robot could theoretically be controlled from anywhere in the world. The pilot controlled the robot from a VR terminal located approximately five miles away at the Telexistence office during a trial in August at a FamilyMart store in Tokyo.

According to Komatsu, this facilitates recruitment and presents the opportunity to hire overseas in locations with lower labor costs. He also says that the robot is easy to control and doesn’t need experienced pilots.

Additionally, stores would be able to operate with fewer employees. Satoru Yoshizawa, a FamilyMart representative, states, “One person can work at multiple stores with a remote-controlled robot.”

According to Yoshizawa, it is particularly challenging for a lot of the company’s stores to hire people to stack shelves for just three to five hours per day. He claims that they could employ a single operator with a robot to work across multiple stores and concentrate on hiring people to work cash registers.

Lawson confronts the same issue. Lawson’s corporate communications division’s Ken Mochimaru tells, “We have been trying to solve the labor shortage in some of our stores, and through this experiment we are going to examine how the robots will help.”

He claims that Lawson will consider deploying the robots across additional of its branches if it proves successful.

Because of Japan’s labor shortage, there is less concern that the use of robots will lead to human job losses than in other nations. According to a 2020 report from McKinsey, a management consulting firm, Japan was on track to automate 27% of current work tasks by 2030 prior to Covid-19.

According to the report, this would still leave the nation without 1.5 million workers, despite the fact that it could take the jobs of approximately 16 million people.

The shortfall could also be filled with immigration. Although the government has taken some steps to allow foreign workers to work in Japan, experts say that Japan does not promote the benefits of immigrants to its population as much as other industrialized nations do.

According to Gee Hee Hong, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, immigration is unlikely to rise sufficiently in the near future to compensate for the aging population.

Hong says that while adopting “labor-saving technology” is part of the solution, there are still obstacles to overcome before robots are widely used in everyday life. According to her, Japan will need to develop a “legal framework for the use of such technologies alongside the general population,” which will include data and consumer protections.

She adds that in order to lessen the impact on unskilled workers, “strong and effective social nets” must be in place.

The pandemic has stoked interest in automation for a number of reasons, one of which is the possibility that robots will reduce human-to-human contact. According to Komatsu, potential customers and partners have shown an increased interest in Telexistence.

However, before the Model-T robot can perform at the same level as a human worker, it still has a long way to go. The robot can place one item on a shelf in eight seconds, whereas a human can do the same thing in about five seconds. The bot is currently only capable of handling packaged goods, not loose bakery goods or fruits and vegetables.

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Since its inception in 2017, Telexistence has been working to overcome these restrictions. The company hopes to use artificial intelligence to teach the robot to automatically mimic human movements so that it can operate without a pilot.