AI for Retail

CHAPTER 20AI for Warehouse and Distribution Centers

Current Roles, Processes, and Inefficiencies

Warehouses and distribution centers (DCs) play a pivotal role in retail. Whether owned by the retailer or independently by national distributors, retailers depend on accurate and timely delivery of products. Every link in this supply chain matters (see Figure 20.1).

As we saw during the pandemic, if they struggle at all, either because of a labor strike, a DC COVID‐19 scare requiring the facility to shut down even for an hour, or inaccurate modeling of supply or demand, the ripple effects will be felt on the shelves in a matter of days.

FIGURE 20.1 Typical retail supply chain process.

Source: Smartsheet Inc. / https://www.smartsheet.com/supply-chain-management / last accessed December 19, 2022.

Warehouses act as storage buffers for CPGs and retailers to deliver to DCs, and DCs act as the more agile processing buffer between the warehouse and the retailer store shelves or the end customer, if going DTC (direct to customer). Some are just old, dusty airplane hangars with some shelves and people walking around with clipboards, and some are highly sophisticated facilities with very careful measurement of ingress and egress, robotic sorting systems, GTP (goods‐to‐picker) robots, PTG (person‐to‐goods) robots, separate cold storage areas for frozen products, ripening rooms for produce, ...