Meet ‘Tally’: BJ’s, Lowe’s, Ikea To Deploy Robots For Tracking Inventory, Parking Lot Patrol

The future in retail is here.

BJ’s Wholesale Club and other retailers recently revealed that they will soon be dispatching robots to help track inventory. Watch out! “Tally” might be roaming the aisles in stores near you.

Once deployed, Tally, designed by the robotics company Simbe, will be responsible for checking store shelves multiple times per day, Insider reported.

BJ’s isn’t the only retail giant wanting in on a solution to help with day-to-day tasks. In fact, Lowe’s deployed its first autonomous LoweBot in 2016 to search for out-of-stock shelves and help restock inventory.

Lowe’s Innovation Labs revealed that “learnings from these early pilots have fueled further testing to unlock a future in which products are never out of stock.”

According to the business outlet, the home improvement giant is currently experimenting with the adoption of “autonomous robots to patrol parking lots to enhance safety.”

The tests began in February with 400-pound Knightscope K5 robots and plans to use them outside of Philadelphia, including Washington state, North Carolina, California, and Washington, D.C.

Ikea is also implementing autonomy robots, having already added 100 drones to the roster to not only track inventory but to “improve the wellbeing” of team members. In Europe, drones work inside Belgian stores. The Swedish furniture company said that the drones serve to “improve stock accuracy” during off-hours.

“This solution supports a more ergonomic workplace for IKEA co-workers as they no longer need to manually confirm each pallet,” the retailer said, per Insider.

Walmart, on the other hand, realized that their “Alphabot” robots were no longer of use to them during the height of the pandemic. They discovered that the 6-foot-tall robots, which helped with grocery packing, could not compare to human workers, who could tackle the same responsibilities for a cheaper cost, according to CNBC.