IKEA Adds Stock-Counting Drones To More of Its Stores (theverge.com) 10
In a blog post shared last week, Ingka, the legal entity responsible for most of Ikea's stores, says it now has a total of 100 autonomous drones counting stock in its warehouses during nonoperational hours. The Verge reports: Ikea first partnered with the drone-making company Verity in 2020 to deploy the drones in Switzerland, but now, the company says they're zipping around 16 locations across Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The Swedish furniture giant says the drones help improve the accuracy of product availability and also support "a more ergonomic workplace," as it saves employees from counting stock manually.
Verity, which specializes in creating self-flying drones for warehouses and even concerts, was founded by Raffaello D'Andrea, one of the creators of Kiva Systems, or what's now called Amazon Robotics. As noted by D'Andrea in 2020, the drones work by taking off from a charging station and then going to each pallet in the warehouse to capture images, videos, and 3D depth scans of the items. Once the job is done, the drones return to their charging stations to download the collected data. The drones not only count inventory but also help employees determine if something's missing or in the wrong spot.
Verity, which specializes in creating self-flying drones for warehouses and even concerts, was founded by Raffaello D'Andrea, one of the creators of Kiva Systems, or what's now called Amazon Robotics. As noted by D'Andrea in 2020, the drones work by taking off from a charging station and then going to each pallet in the warehouse to capture images, videos, and 3D depth scans of the items. Once the job is done, the drones return to their charging stations to download the collected data. The drones not only count inventory but also help employees determine if something's missing or in the wrong spot.
hey, do you hear that buzzing? (Score:2)
This kind of thing will get more interesting when the store's security department has drones physically following suspected shoplifters (or girls whose dress it's fun to look down) around the premises.
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Or following them home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The other day I saw a security robot in the Home Depot parking lot. It was the same model that jumped in the water in San Francisco.
It was weirdly cute, my wife and I both laughed at it.
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Check out the promo video (Score:2)
Internal memo was different. (Score:2)
IKEA's internal memo is that they were firing hundreds of stock counting drones. ;)
Poor RFID (Score:3)
If only a tool could allow you to track devices moving into and out of a fixed area. Oh yeah, we need drones to count boxes when you can already count them as they come in and leave. Tags are so cheap they come on disposable rolls and it's not like IKEA doesn't have custom packaging already identifying the
model of what's in the carton. Passive RFID works without all the drone hype. Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for drones like with what Zipline is doing in Africa [ieee.org], I don't think they're the cure-all for inventory management.
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OMG! The meatballs are made out of... (Score:2)