Latest / The Retail Podcast / Retail Robotics: Insights with Michel Spruijt of Brain Corp

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Retail Robotics: Insights with Michel Spruijt of Brain Corp · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  And the other points that you get out of a robot is
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  consistency, but that's that's the other challenge and on both
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  sides of the world. See the funny story is always
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  when I on the cleaning sites ask the headquarters is that how
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  much time do they would you do you cleaning the store?
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  A different answer than when I asked the school manager when I
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  asked the guy that pleased the floor.
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  Hello, welcome back to the Retail podcast.
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  Now this, like quite a few of my interviews, has been an
• 0:36
  interview in the making for a while.
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  I've been trying to get on Michelle's diary and and it's
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  been chaos for both of us being in different parts of the world.
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  But I'm lucky enough to be joined by Michelle Sproat, and
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  I'm hopefully I did some justice to your name.
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  A. Mark out of 10 maybe for the
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  pronunciation is it? I would give her the seven and a
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  half. I'll take the 7 1/2, but
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  Michelle is the President of Brain Corp and I saw Brain Corp
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  earlier this year at Eurosys where I got some time to to
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  spend with your actually your engineer, I think he was your
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  Chief growth officer there. And it was really fascinating to
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  look at our robotics inventory management and all the different
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  elements are coming into play. But before we get into all of
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  that, why don't we, Michelle, just spend a few minutes on you.
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  How how you're you're the president of Brain Corp
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  International. Tell us a little bit about
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  yourself. Tell us a little bit about what
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  Brain Corp does. I know retail is just one of
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  your verticals in terms of all the verticals yourself.
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  But yeah, I'd love, love to hear more about you.
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  Yeah, thank you Alex for having me.
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  Of course, it's always a joy to to join you on these things.
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  So originally I started off with wanting to work in the printing
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  industry a long time ago. I did it, I did it for five
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  years and then I went into IT accessory manufacturing and and
• 2:03
  selling. I've done it for 20 years in a
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  lot of different roles. And one day I had AI got a phone
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  call from Brain saying, hey, you want to expand outside of the US
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  and we want to start the European office.
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  Are you interested in starting that up and leading that?
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  So it took me probably a couple of weeks to think about it
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  because it's a big decision after 20 years.
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  But on the other hand, it was very exciting to enter a world
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  of AI software, robotics, what I was never exposed to what that I
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  could learn a lot from it because I like to learn from the
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  things that I do. So I make a decision to resign
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  my current role at that time and start Brain Corp in the July
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  2019. Oh, wow, OK.
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  And it's so we're already five years in and I still enjoy every
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  single day. It's a very dynamic, very fast
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  growing industry. When I look back, you know, time
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  has been flown by really crazy, but it also brought a lot of
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  insights into the different ways of people think about robotics
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  and AI and software. And certainly in the beginning I
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  always was asked, you know, doing you think that these
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  robots take all these jobs. And in the beginning there was,
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  I always said, you know, AI is about embracing so you can do
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  two things. You can run away for it until it
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  bites you in the back and then you're too late or embrace it
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  and see what it can do for you and work.
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  It's from depth perspective and I think there, and that's also
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  the reason I went working for Brain, is I wanted to embrace it
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  and see how it can work for people and not against people.
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  Yeah, I mean, the evolution of robotics specifically within
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  retail has been really interesting for me.
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  A bit slower than I imagined, if I, if I'm honest, I, I, I am
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  considering how long the capability has been there.
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  But then I, I remember, you know, talking about again with
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  your engineers, how software is, is as important now because
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  everything it just becomes a connected mesh.
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  But again, but I would sort of take it within specific
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  segments. Just going back to in terms of
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  the company, tell me a little bit more about Brain Corp.
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  So it's AUS based organisation, right?
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  San Diego, right? Yeah.
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  So our headquarters is based in San Diego and it all started
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  back in 2009 when Eugene Eugenia Zaykovic, our founder worked at
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  Qualcomm and he was leading the department within Qualcomm that
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  was responsible for AI, robotics and in a consultative way to
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  Qualcomm. And in 2014, he wanted to make
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  his own story. He believed in a better, safer,
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  more productive environment with the whole with the help of AI.
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  So what happened is, is he left Qualcomm with I think 17
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  engineers, PhDs and they have been thinking about.
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  So where can we add value with software brings because Eugene
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  is a neuroscientist, how can we, how can we do that in a way that
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  it really helps people? And so we came to the conclusion
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  that cleaning was a great point for us to start.
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  And then and that took us basically in the from 14 to 24.
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  We are now into this whole space of retail because in retail
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  obviously there's a lot of cleaning and we have a lot of
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  retailers that decided that with robotics, they can challenge the
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  labour shortage, absenteeism and all these things and they also
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  can make sure that these tasks are done every single day.
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  So we we came from that perspective and obviously having
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  been sold a lot of robots into retail, if you would have a
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  total robot count, we have over 37,000 robots out in the field.
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  Wow. And a big portion certainly of
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  the bigger machines are in retail.
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  We really took that and also listen to the retailers what
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  kind of challenges they face. So next to cleaning, we also do
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  this whole sense, we call it a piece of the puzzle where we
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  help retailers to get a better view of their environment and
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  their shells and their products and how they can use that to
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  basically maximise their their store environments.
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  Yeah. I got you.
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  Well, one of the things which when I in my old corporate
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  world, I used to always ask the CIOs or execs that I met one
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  question. What's more important to you to
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  make money for your board or to save money for your board?
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  As in people's approach to the problem?
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  Are they doing it for gain or or efficient?
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  Just looking at your different use cases from store cleaning to
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  inventory optimization. What what?
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  What do people turn up to ask your help for?
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  Yes. It depends on which angle you
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  take. So if you look more at on the
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  cleaning side, cleaning is something that needs to be done
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  and it needs to happen every single day.
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  I think I can share so this is the one I saw in action.
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  Yeah, that's, that's the big machine.
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  And that's so this machine you normally don't see in stores,
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  this is a machine that you normally see in DCS and
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  warehouses because it's it's it's a it's A at the end of the
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  day, it's a volume game. Plus it's also about how big is
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  your store and what can fit your store because that's the other
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  challenge because this one probably can drive an aisle and
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  then we're done and then you need to base.
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  But these are, this is a very nice industrial logistic DC
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  solution if we see going in a lot to be honest.
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  So sorry I I interrupted you as you were talking when I said
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  what's more important to save money or make money because I
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  see them as, but you were saying it depends on the use case that
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  the customer comes to you with. Yeah.
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  So if you take the retail, the the cleaning sites, Yeah.
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  What about the cleaning sites? It's something that needs to be
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  done every single day. So it's a it's something that is
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  a cost that they want to perform every single day.
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  While if you are talking about the sense.
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  So this is the the thing that you show now on the screen.
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  This is the one. It's about the gain.
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  So what are the challenges that your face?
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  Are you facing other stocks? Are you facing theft?
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  Are you facing your phantom inventory?
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  Do you want to optimise your on shelf availability?
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  If we talk about that, that's all about the the gain side of
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  the world. So it depends on who you talk to
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  because the on the cleaning side, different people are
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  responsible than on the, the, the sense side.
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  It's yeah. Other time it's on the sense
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  side, it's more the CIO, some operate store operations, while
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  on the clean side is more the facilities facilities.
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  So it really depends on where you go with what.
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  So we always see in reality that we talk to the two different
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  groups their own kind of interest where the on the
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  cleaning side we talk about, you know, labour shortage,
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  absenteeism, learning curve, rotation of jobs and finding
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  people. On the sense side we're talking
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  about consistency about every on certain moments in time.
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  So I want to do it twice a day at certain points.
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  So I always have the same measurements over time to really
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  look into what are my challenges on the shelf.
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  So it really depends on who you talk to, Alex.
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  And I think that's in a way a very nice thing because we, we,
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  we have a very broad scope into retail and we talked to
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  everybody. So we hear a lot of the
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  challenges that people face. Are it though?
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  But I'm just curious, what are people coming to you?
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  What's the problem that they're coming to you right now to
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  Seoul? Which, which, which one?
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  Is it more in? Which camp is it more in?
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  I think today the the the cleaning challenge is the bigger
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  challenge because of labour shortage.
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  The the sense site is something that everybody is interested in,
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  but they're very early, it's very early in the curve because
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  there is so much going on in retail world right now and there
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  is so much software out there. So it's also a matter of where
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  are your priorities, What do you think you can have your biggest
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  gain in the short amount of time.
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  But we but everybody and that's and that's the nice thing about
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  having multiple solutions is that when we go to a cleaning
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  show, it's really focused on the cleaning side.
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  Yeah. And even if I bring the sense
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  sites there, it's it's not of their interest.
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  If we go to a more retail show where retailers are coming that
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  are looking for technology to for the game, then definitely
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  the sense solution is a real solution they all want to talk
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  about. So there is not a shortage of
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  talk about it, but it's all about the strategic decision
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  that you're willing to make to implement automation and
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  robotics for the best use in your retail environment.
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  And I think, and I see that people struggle with that one
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  the most, making that strategic decision to not say, you know,
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  I'm go, I will, I will go for one.
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  And then I will see for a longer time how it works out.
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  No, really looking at, so what's the problem you're trying to
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  solve? And we're going to solve it at
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  scale. I think there is the still right
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  now that's I think the biggest challenge that we're facing.
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  I'm curious the sort of legacy way of trying like out of stock.
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  I've seen companies like Walmart go heavy on using robots to do
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  inventory management for out of stock.
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  Does that is that like is out of stock one of the key areas that
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  you see from inventory management?
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  Is that like one of the gains that you get with with sense and
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  and using your types of solutions?
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  I think there are multiple things there, Alex, is that our
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  stock is obviously a big thing, but it also depends on your
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  infrastructure and your supply chain.
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  If out of stock is your biggest game or at least of the game,
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  because if you don't stock inventory in your backroom, you
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  can find out of stocks, but you cannot refill the shelves in the
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  day. It's all about making sure that
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  the the right products is at the right moment that shelves at the
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  moment your customer wants to buy it.
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  And if you don't have it. And certainly if you talk about
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  branded products where people are looking for, and I don't
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  want to mention brands because we, we need to be careful, of
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  course, always with brands. But if I want to have a certain
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  brand and I go to store and I cannot find it, I will not buy a
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  substitute. I will go to another store and
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  then you get again. So what's the loyalty of the
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  customer to go into store is if I find less than 50% of the
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  products in your store, what I need, I will go to another store
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  where I can find more than 50%. It's also making sure that your
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  customer stays loyal and keeps on coming to your store.
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  So out of stock is definitely a high rating one.
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  The other one that's combined also with the other stock is
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  that if you listen to retailers, what of what is one of the
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  biggest problem is theft. So thefts, damaged goods and
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  phantom inventory. And I what I mean with phantom
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  inventory is you buy a Sprite and and a Fantar Coca-Cola, you
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  scan 2 sprites. So the system thinks you there
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  are two sprites gone, but in reality there is different
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  product gone. Yeah, you can do a lot with the
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  data of seals in and seals out, but thefts and damage goods and
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  phantom inventory will mess that up.
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  So it will also not give you the right angle of what you need to
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  do. So that's one piece of the
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  puzzle that you can say, OK, but you can also look at.
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  So price tag compliance is the price that is on the shelf, is
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  that the price that the product really needs to be?
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  Or if you have electronic price labels, different price labels,
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  they change core based on inventory availability.
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  Again, seals in, seals out. But if you work with theft and
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  all these things, it will mean that your price tags display the
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  wrong information. So it's, I think it's all these
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  things together and are creating the solution for the customer.
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  Because I don't think that it's a one trick pony.
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  Every retailer faces some kind of the same problems that they
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  have their own priorities and in their mind things to fix it.
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  So what we are trying to do is we are trying to listen to
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  problems and come up with a solution, but do not listen to
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  their solutions because that might not be the right solution.
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  Yeah. So that, that is evolving our
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  products and not only in retail and and and outside retail, but
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  that's really the driver for us is that what's the customer's
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  problem and what are we trying to do to help them with it.
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  And sometimes it's not the right thing right now, but it might be
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  in the future. So we always keep a lot of close
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  contact to, to the retailers in Europe and international to make
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  sure that we not only today but also over time can provide them
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  with the solutions they need. And we're, we're, but we're
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  still at a very early stage of adoption certainly in retail
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  because also retail is very traditional and that's, that's
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  not a good or a bad thing, but it's just a reality.
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  Yeah, yeah. It takes a long time for them to
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  take the right decisions on going for that teaching decision
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  to scale. I think that, but I but I also
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  see that retailers really want to make that decision, but they
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  need help. So I think we're now at the
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  stage where retailers are willing to listen and see how
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  how we can help them. And hopefully in the next year
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  or two, we'll get to the point where automation is not a a
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  question, it's a given from the given.
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  We explore other things to to optimise it even more than it is
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  today. Is the robotics side still a
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  barrier? Are people still, have we moved
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  on from robots, I don't know going into people or the the the
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  physicality of having robots, have people moved on for that or
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  is that still a concern from them for, for them?
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  No, I I think we have overcome that.
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  I think if you talk five years ago, definitely it was a yeah,
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  that something was driving around autonomously in a store.
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  What we see more now, it's become it's become became more a
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  gimmick. So every we see a lot of people
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  starting filming the robots because they think it's cool
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  that it's running around. The only thing is it's sometimes
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  people don't understand what they're doing.
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  So what you see is some retailers have put on a scrubber
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  and said, I'm cleaning for you. They put on the, on the, on the
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  scanners, they would put, we would put, I'm a, I'm a scanning
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  robot, not a price checking robot for your products.
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  Sorry, coming up with your products.
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  And I think that's the the whole thing, Alex, is that all these
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  things you can use for multiple things.
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  Because if you look at the, the, the sense side of it, the
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  scanner side of the world, retailers are changing their
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  planogram, you know, every week, every two weeks, every week
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  there are coming new products. Every week their products are
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  gone. You want to make sure that the
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  brands that manner are at the right spot in your store because
• 18:22
  you know that they care. They want proof of performance.
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  So you can combine a lot of things there in the store, which
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  you can go from out of stock price tech compliance, planet
• 18:33
  Cam compliance. But it all depends on how are
• 18:37
  you willing to invest in it And are you willing to, you don't
• 18:40
  need to adopt, but you need to change my maybe sometimes some
• 18:43
  processes. Are you willing to also look
• 18:46
  into your processes? Because that's what we see a lot
• 18:48
  of times in the process, both on the cleaning and on the same
• 18:52
  side that that there is not a real process that somebody does
• 18:56
  something. But it's not a process where you
• 18:58
  say, when I come in in the morning, these are the things
• 19:02
  that I do, I want to have before 8:00.
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  I want to have cleaned the fresh aisle, the the high density
• 19:09
  aisles. At 8:00 when my store opens, I
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  will clean the frozen food and the alcohol because normally the
• 19:16
  people in the morning that come in at 8 don't go with that
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  section. So really giving it a thought.
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  And it doesn't mean that you need to change the way you work
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  or that you change everything in the store though.
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  It's about creating a programme on what you want to do and what
• 19:34
  you want to get out of it. If we, if we just put ourselves
• 19:36
  in the in the, in the in the shoes of someone who's looking
• 19:40
  at robotics for their store, I'm coming to meet with you.
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  What's the thing that I'm not probably thought about?
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  What's the one thing that you're always having to educate people
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  on? So the first thing people always
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  think that it's very complicated.
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  And then one of the things that we did is we made it very, very
• 19:55
  simple because if people think about the robots, it's always
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  like, I don't understand that. So when you say no and I always
• 20:02
  say, Alex, I can teach you in 30 seconds how our robot works.
• 20:08
  We have spent a lot of time on making things easy both on the
• 20:12
  robot and off the robot. We work with an app where a lot
• 20:16
  of the information that you need to know is in the app.
• 20:20
  Our goal is always been. To work together with people,
• 20:24
  not to replace people. That's why with our technology,
• 20:27
  you always need a person. It's not sometimes not to
• 20:31
  operate the robot, but follow up on the actions that are coming
• 20:34
  out of the robot. There's always a human in the
• 20:38
  loop somewhere in the process. It's also sometimes the
• 20:43
  challenge that there is a human in the loop because you need to
• 20:45
  make sure that they do the things they need to do.
• 20:48
  Yeah, but it's the same challenge that you have today.
• 20:51
  AI today is not a product, it's a feature.
• 20:56
  And so therefore this isn't about taking people's jobs, it's
• 20:59
  about allowing them to go faster, to get more data, to get
• 21:02
  the outcome faster than they would do if they were going to
• 21:05
  do it themselves. And I see you're not there to
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  replace my job necessarily, but to help me do maybe four things
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  rather than just one and get to wherever I needed to get to
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  faster. Yeah, that's one point.
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  And the other points that you get out of a robot is
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  consistency. But that's that's the other
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  challenge because you and on both sides of the world.
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  So if you with a machine, if you can clean on a consistent speed,
• 21:34
  you will get a different result than when you're sitting on it.
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  You're driving faster, slower, getting off to it because you
• 21:40
  need to pick something up, go sit again and and it's the same
• 21:43
  on the other, on the other side is because if you know that
• 21:46
  every single day at that six O clock and at one O clock, your
• 21:50
  inventory is scans and it's also always scanned in the same way.
• 21:53
  You always get in the same way your data, you know what's going
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  on. And I and, and the funny story
• 21:59
  is always when I on the cleaning sites, ask the headquarters, is
• 22:03
  that how much time do they do you do you clean in the store?
• 22:07
  Yeah, a different answer. And when I ask the store
• 22:10
  manager, when I ask the guy that cleans the floor, because what I
• 22:13
  get is like it depends on the priority.
• 22:17
  If we have an empty store, somebody might take an hour and
• 22:22
  a half of cleaning the environment.
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  But if the store is busy and he has something else to do, he can
• 22:29
  do the same in 30 minutes. But it means that clean is not
• 22:33
  the same. Clean in 30 minutes is an hour
• 22:35
  and a half hours. That is also part of the road.
• 22:38
  The RoboCop always do is consistent way of working in the
• 22:43
  way that you want to do it. You know, always the output and
• 22:47
  if the output is not there, we have the ways to track it and to
• 22:50
  see why not and to optimise it in a way that next time it can
• 22:55
  be optimised in a way that you wanted to be.
• 22:59
  How? How long does one robot
• 23:01
  traditionally last? Like, what's if?
• 23:03
  What's my investment in this? If if I'm investing in these
• 23:07
  solutions, when do I have to? What am I budgeting for?
• 23:10
  What's the period? Right now, if you see, people
• 23:12
  are buying the robots or working with the robots for five to
• 23:16
  seven years minimum. Got you.
• 23:18
  The thing is, and that's is because the robots, you know, if
• 23:23
  you put a robot next to a manual machine, yeah, and you look at
• 23:29
  the the way it looks, you almost can based on feeling the robot
• 23:36
  you can see or feeling the machines, which one is the robot
• 23:38
  and which one is not. Because that's the other thing
• 23:41
  is that with the manual machine, there's a lot of damage on the
• 23:45
  machine because they you run into shells and end caps and
• 23:50
  doors while the robot is avoiding that.
• 23:54
  Yeah. So and as you are running the
• 23:57
  robot way more consistently, the tear, the wear and tear is also
• 24:02
  way more spread over time. Got you.
• 24:06
  Oh, so in general we see five to seven years?
• 24:09
  Looking to the future now in terms of where you see this
• 24:14
  growing in the and the pace of adoption change and
• 24:19
  transformation, as I said, how do you see the future?
• 24:21
  What do you what are the big things that are on the radar for
• 24:25
  you guys that you think will have a a big impact?
• 24:28
  We we still believe that the whole sense part of it will be a
• 24:33
  big portion. I think AI will play will play a
• 24:37
  bigger role for future. Yeah, also regards to self
• 24:42
  checkout theft prevention where you will have more recognisable
• 24:48
  things where you RFID will hopefully at a certain moment in
• 24:53
  time affordable for everything. So you not only can see things,
• 24:57
  but also count things on everything.
• 25:00
  There are companies obviously in apparel that just do RFID where
• 25:04
  it's easier to to count, but I think in the future pricing will
• 25:09
  go down to. So I think there will be a lot
• 25:12
  of features that will help to make things easier you because
• 25:20
  right now if you need to do a, let's call it an invertorization
• 25:24
  of what do you have in store, you really need to have a lot of
• 25:28
  people counting things. And I think those are the things
• 25:31
  that we will see towards the future where there will be a lot
• 25:35
  of added value where you can again not replace, but in
• 25:40
  coordination with people get way more consistent output on a more
• 25:46
  regular basis, yeah, than it is today because inventory is done
• 25:51
  now every quarter or maybe, but imagine that you could do it
• 25:54
  every day. I'm just curious on the
• 25:57
  inventory part because we met, we've discussed this.
• 25:59
  Are there any sort of live data points or anything that you've
• 26:03
  seen that surprised you from the I can't 30,000 robots that
• 26:08
  you've got out there? Is there any data that's coming
• 26:11
  back that has pleasantly surprised you or surprised your
• 26:14
  customers? Because you mentioned complexity
• 26:17
  was one, it's not that complicated, right?
• 26:19
  That that sort of like for them was was the right.
• 26:22
  Thing the, the, the, the. So what's interesting for us is
• 26:25
  that the more robots you have, the more data you have.
• 26:29
  Yeah. And the more data you have, the
• 26:31
  more edge cases you have. Yeah.
• 26:34
  And the more edge cases you can solve, the better your robots
• 26:37
  will become. So, and that's the nice thing
• 26:42
  about when you are facing an edge case, if you solve that
• 26:47
  case for that one robot, if all our software, all our robots are
• 26:52
  on the same software, if you solve it for one robot, you
• 26:55
  solve it for all robots next fine.
• 26:59
  When you see your robot that has not faced that before, it will
• 27:03
  just handle it in a way that you thought interesting.
• 27:07
  And I think that's, and I don't think it's a data thing, but I'm
• 27:10
  always, and with me also customers surprised about how
• 27:15
  robots get out of situations you were not expecting, they come
• 27:19
  out too. Got you.
• 27:21
  So do you think, you know, this is impossible for the robot to
• 27:24
  do? And then we, when you look at
• 27:25
  it, it is always finding a way to do it.
• 27:28
  And I think that is for me always a big thing.
• 27:31
  But it's the same thing from going from manual to automation.
• 27:36
  When we teach a a cleaner that becomes an operator, a robot
• 27:40
  operator, when they they start with a robot, when they start
• 27:43
  using the robot, there's always in the beginning, there's always
• 27:47
  some hesitance. But when they see the robots run
• 27:51
  for the first time, what they teach the robot, they always
• 27:53
  start to smile. And in the beginning.
• 27:55
  On hell, when I saw it, we can't help but smile.
• 28:00
  But in always ask for some adoption.
• 28:03
  So what is that in the beginning they are fearing it a little bit
• 28:08
  and after two weeks where we go back, they say I want them to
• 28:12
  never take it away anymore because I see the value and they
• 28:15
  start seeing the value. If instead of doing all this,
• 28:19
  you go sweep the floor, you go clean the floor, you go right
• 28:24
  now what you can do is you sweep an aisle, the robot will take
• 28:27
  the value, go to the next aisle, and one of a sudden, when you're
• 28:31
  in the middle, you can help unloading the trucks.
• 28:34
  You can help put stuff on the products on the shelves, but you
• 28:40
  can also help customers. So there will be more customer
• 28:44
  attention that way. Yeah, which solves a lot of
• 28:47
  different things, and it also adds a lot of additional value
• 28:50
  you didn't have before. I got you.
• 28:53
  Is there one question that you are normally asked that I didn't
• 28:56
  ask? Yeah, I think, I think we talked
• 28:59
  about it, but it's more about the thing that I always would
• 29:02
  like to end with. OK.
• 29:05
  It's it's two things. One again is AI is there to
• 29:10
  embrace, not to run away for yeah, you always should look at
• 29:14
  what it can do for you and you can come to the conclusion that
• 29:19
  it's not for you today, but be prepared for the future.
• 29:23
  That's one. The second key is when you talk
• 29:27
  about robotics, be able to be willing to strategically decide
• 29:32
  to implement robotics at scale because at scale you will see
• 29:37
  all the benefits that it's bringing one robots or two
• 29:41
  robots is is also good, but it will not bring you the skilled
• 29:44
  advantage that you are looking for.
• 29:47
  SO1 embrace it to if you embrace it and you see that it works,
• 29:53
  make the strategic decision. And it doesn't mean that you
• 29:56
  need to say I will do 500 today, yeah, but make for yourself, say
• 30:00
  I will, I will start with five, then I will go in three months
• 30:02
  to 10 and then I will roll it out.
• 30:04
  So you can also take your learning curve in it.
• 30:08
  But that way you can really maximise your investment in
• 30:12
  robotics and AI. Perfect.
• 30:13
  Thank you, Michelle. Thank you so much for giving up
• 30:16
  your time to be with with us this morning and I look forward
• 30:21
  to hopefully seeing you at one of the future conferences.
• 30:24
  You will definitely see that. Brilliant.
• 30:26
  Thank you. Thanks, Alex.