Inventory tracking robots to be deployed across all stores.

 

Kmart has revealed plans to deploy an inventory tracking robot called TORY into every one of its physical stores in Australia and New Zealand over the next 15 months.

 

The TORY robot, made by MetraLabs, will roam stores during quiet times - mostly overnight - triangulating exactly where apparel and homeware items are and how much stock is left.

 

It does this by scanning for radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags that are attached to the labels on products. 

 

Kmart Group managing director Ian Bailey told IT News that the group anticipated deriving “significant benefit” from the storewide robot rollout.

 

He said the robots had been trialled in Kmart’s research and development operations in the United States - which occur under its ‘Anko’ brand.

 

The result is a quantum improvement in inventory accuracy for apparel from 60 per cent accuracy at an SKU level today to 95 per cent.

 

Bailey said the retailer would initially use TORY to keep track of apparel and ‘soft home’ inventory, though may extend to other category types if it believed it could achieve “adequately strong results”.