WITH ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S LEADING RETAIL STORES TO HELP IMPROVE INVENTORY ACCURACY THROUGH ROBOTS
Having invested in a fleet of RFID enabled robots, Kmart was looking to improve the ROI of the initiative by integrating key data with their stock management system.
Maintaining an accurate and timely understanding of stock levels in-store can provide retailers with significant operational improvements as well as competitive differentiation. This was the catalyst for Kmart investing in a fleet of RFID enabled “Tory” robots from Metralabs. Every night these robot staff would run (wheel?) around Kmart stores counting stock.
With a plan to deploy them across more than 250 stores, the amount of inventory data being generated daily was massive. Kmart needed to ingest this data and disseminate it to downstream stock management and reporting systems, so it could be used to deliver value to the business.
Kmart had designed a robust, AWS based ingestion solution and needed a partner to help implement within a short period of time.
Kmart had internally created a detailed solution design using a mix of AWS Services, such as Lambda, SQS and Spring Boot microservices running on ECS. Due to time constraints from the business, Kmart needed to rapidly deliver a working solution to production. Working with Ippon, Kmart onboarded a team who were able to finalise and implement the detailed design leveraging a modern Spring Boot implementation.
The solution itself used pragmatically selected Java patterns and libraries, with a focus on simplicity and maintainability. The majority of the solution used asynchronous messaging for robust processing of long running tasks with a relational database for storage. The database access behaviour was carefully considered to ensure appropriate performance with the large amounts of incoming data.
There was also a focus on structured logging and observability to help with the operational effectiveness of the software. Applications outputted data in a structured JSON format, which allowed queries and dashboards to be easily constructed in SumoLogic. An OpenTelemetry implementation was used to handle metrics and traces.
Kmart was able to successfully roll out the robots successfully to over 250 stores generating tangible business benefits
With a robust and performant solution in place, Kmart was able to rollout the robot to all large format stores. This allowed them to run a daily inventory check for all items within the apparel department which greatly improved day to day tracking of inventory. Better visibility of inventory allowed Kmart to identify out of stock items and them assign staff to replenish the stock from back of house. Better availability of stock led to a significant increase in sales, as more product is available for sale, more often. It has also improved online picking efficiency. The program has been so successful in Australia, that Kmart are in the process of rolling it out to New Zealand!
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