ROBOTICS
Even though robots are at the forefront of the Niska store, there is still room for the human element in retail outlets.
Easy to program cobot complements novelty ice-cream outlet When digital and robotics solutions specialist Niska wanted to open a retail ice-cream outlet, it needed something different, so it contacted ABB. Food & Beverage Industry News explains why.
I
t can be hard to make a dollar in the retail world. Overheads can be high, margins small, good staff not easy to find, and with the online presence of Amazon, Alibaba and a myriad of other smaller players, competition is fierce.
But people will always need food. And while a recent report from Brick Meets Click has found that online grocery shopping makes up 5.5 per cent of total spend in the category in the US (closely mirrored here in Australia) and is growing, people
Not everything in the Niska store can be dispensed by a cobot. 28 Food&Beverage Industry News | November 2019 | www.foodmag.com.au
still like to eat out. And there is still compulsion buying at your favourite fast food outlet, or ice cream store. Again, competition is fierce so as well as varying the products that are on offer, but also vary the shopping experience, too. This is something digital and robotics solutions company Niska thought when it mooted the idea of opening an ice-cream store in Melbourne’s CBD. Its solutions are aimed at the retail industry, which is why it decided on a novel approach – robots serving customers. The idea of robots serving people has been the purview of science fiction since the genre was invented, however now it is coming to fruition. Although the concept is all Niska’s, the company needed help to bring its idea alive. Enter ABB, who among other things, specialises in robotics. John Rieusset leads ABB’s business
activities in the food and beverage industry. He is also the marketing manager for ABB’s Robotics and Motion businesses. The YuMi robot is known as Tony and adds the toppings to the ice cream, and serves them to customers. A key aspect of Niska’s operation is ABB’s YuMi robot – or cobot as they prefer to call it – which is a popular model that is being used in factories throughout the world. While the aesthetic side of what the robot looks like in store are a novelty – and Niska are first to admit that is part of the reason for opening the outlet – Rieusset said that the practical aspects of YuMi were the main selling point. “In terms of deploying YuMi, one of the key aspects as to why Niska was interested was the fact it could be redeployed to do different tasks and it’s very easy to program,” he said. “The robot has what is called a lead-through
