The pickup tower in the Bonney Lake Walmart is a tall, newly installed orange beacon, beckoning online shoppers to unlock their purchases inside. It's manually loaded by Walmart crew members after a shopper places an order. Larger orders are placed in the lockers to the left or kept in the back. The tower activates upon approach and opens when the shopper scans their mobile device. The upgrades are part of a $36 million investment in new technologies and upgrades to Walmarts in Washington state (Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times/TNS)
BONNEY LAKE, Washington: When an autonomous floor scrubber was rolled out in Walmart’s Bonney Lake store last month, shoppers mistook the teal blue scrubber zipping down the aisles for a runaway machine, said manager David Klein. "Some customers are a little freaked out."
Klein said the Auto-C robot has relieved his employees of several hours of cleaning every evening, and has allowed him to avoid hiring another maintenance worker on the previously understaffed team. The 4ft-tall scrubber, which resembles a riding lawn mower but is considerably quieter, uses sensors to scan its environment and to avoid people or objects in its way.
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