Sam’s Club starts national deployment of automated inventory analytics robots

Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart Inc. and a leading membership warehouse club, has announced the national, chain-wide roll out of an automated inventory scanning capability that will be added to their existing fleet of robotic scrubbers in partnership with Brain Corp and Tennant Company. The rollout marks the largest and fastest technology deployment undertaken by Brain Corp, an artificial intelligence (AI) company creating transformative core technology in robotics, and the first commercial application of its inventory scanning technology anywhere in the world, according to the announcement.

“Sam’s Club is hyper focused on making sure our members have a seamless shopping experience, so any time-saving innovation we can implement is significant. By adding Inventory Scan to our current fleet of robotic scrubbers, we obtain critical inventory data that previously was time consuming to obtain,” said Todd Garner, VP of In Club Product Management at Sam’s Club. “This intelligence allows us to proactively manage our clubs in an efficient manner. Inventory Scan assures items are available and easy to locate in the club, freeing up time for our associates to focus on members and the shopping experience they deserve.”

The new scanning accessory will be fitted to the almost 600 autonomous floor scrubbers already deployed within Sam’s Club stores nationwide. These towers, powered by Brain Corp’s AI operating system, BrainOS, and manufactured by Tennant Company combine best-in-class autonomy and ease of use with trusted equipment, the companies added. Once installed on the scrubber, the new, cloud-connected Inventory Scan tower is able to capture data as it moves autonomously around the club. Reports are then delivered to the club managers that provide numerous insights including: verification of pricing accuracy, planogram compliance, product stock levels and product localization. Each function negates the need for time consuming and manual processes, reducing waste and inventory loss, the announcement added.

“This latest iteration of our valued and longstanding partnership with Sam’s Club marks the beginning of realizing the next phase in our company’s vision,” said Dr. Eugene Izhikevich, CEO of Brain Corp. “We are actively taking BrainOS-powered robots from primarily task-oriented machines, to in-store data acquisition platforms, able to deliver actionable insights on inventory availability, planogram compliance and more. This adds significant ROI for retailers.”