Delivery Archives - Business Intelligence Info

Tag Archives: Delivery

Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas

March 9, 2021 Big Data

Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data. Learn more.

Refraction AI, a company developing semi-autonomous delivery robots, today announced that it raised $ 4.2 million in seed funding led by Pillar VC. Refraction says that the proceeds will be used for customer acquisition, geographic expansion, and product development well into the next year.

The worsening COVID-19 health crisis in much of the U.S. seems likely to hasten the adoption of self-guided robots and drones for goods transportation. They require disinfection, which companies like Kiwibot, Starship Technologies, and Postmates are conducting manually with sanitation teams. But in some cases, delivery rovers like Refraction’s could minimize the risk of spreading disease. Recent market reports from Allied Market Research and Infiniti estimate that annual growth in the last-mile delivery sector over the next 10 years will exceed 14%, with the autonomous delivery segment projected to grow at over 24%, from $ 11.9 billion in 2021 to more than $ 84 billion globally by 2031.

Launched in July 2019, Refraction was cofounded by Matt Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan, both professors at the University of Michigan. Working alongside several retail partners, people within a few-mile radius can have orders delivered by Refraction’s REV-1 robot. After customers order through a dedicated website, Refraction’s employees load the vehicles at the store, and recipients receive text message updates, along with a code to open the robot’s storage compartment when it arrives.

REV-1, which is approximately the size of an electric bicycle and is legally categorized as an ebike, weighs approximately 100 pounds and stands roughly 4 feet tall, including its three wheels. It travels an average 10 to 15 miles per hour with a very short stopping distance, and the compartment holds about six bags of groceries.

$Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas$

REV-1’s perception system comprises 12 cameras, in addition to redundant radar and ultrasound sensors — a package the company claims costs a fraction of the lidar sensors used in rival rovers. The robot can navigate in inclement weather, including rain and snow, and it doesn’t depend on high-definition maps for navigation.

Prior to a partnership with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Produce Station, REV-1 had been delivering exclusively from Ann Arbor restaurants, including Miss Kim and Tio’s Mexican Cafe, during lunchtime as part of a three-month pilot. The company charges the restaurant a flat $ 7.50, and Refraction’s over 500 customers pay a portion of that fee if the business chooses. (Tips go directly to Refraction’s partners.)

As of May 2020, Refraction had eight robots running in Ann Arbor, and it expects to have over 20 within the next few weeks. The latest investment brings its total raised to date to over $ 10 million.

“Last-mile delivery is the quintessential example of a sector that is ripe for innovation, owing to a powerful confluence of advancing technology, demographics, social values and consumer models. Conventional approaches have left businesses and consumers with few choices in this new environment as they struggle to keep pace with surging demand — burdened by the costs, regulatory, and logistical challenges of a legacy infrastructure,” Refraction CEO Luke Schneider, who took the helm in fall 2020, said in a press release. “Our platform uses technology that exists today in an innovative way, to get people the things they need, when they need them, where they live. And we’re doing so in a way that reduces business’ costs, makes roads less congested, and eliminates carbon emissions.”

VentureBeat

VentureBeat’s mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative technology and transact.

Our site delivers essential information on data technologies and strategies to guide you as you lead your organizations. We invite you to become a member of our community, to access:

up-to-date information on the subjects of interest to you
our newsletters
gated thought-leader content and discounted access to our prized events, such as Transform 2021: Learn More
networking features, and more

Become a member

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Ford and Argo AI kick off charitable food delivery pilot in Miami

December 7, 2020 Big Data

In partnership with the Education Fund, a collection of nonprofits working in the U.S. and other countries to improve the quality of education, Ford and Pittsburgh-based autonomous car startup Argo AI say they’ve teamed up to make contactless deliveries in Ford’s Fusion Hybrid self-driving test vehicles. The launch of the pilot, which is taking place in Miami, comes as Ford continues to build out a service for autonomous ride-hailing and goods delivery in Miami-Dade County.

Some experts predict the coronavirus outbreak will hasten the adoption of driverless vehicles for delivery. A study published by CarGurus found that 39% of people don’t plan to use human-driven ride-sharing services post-pandemic for fear of insufficient sanitation. Despite driverless cars’ need for regular disinfection and the public’s misgivings about their general safety, they promise to minimize the risk of spreading disease because they inherently limit driver-rider contact.

Ford says it and Argo will make weekly contactless deliveries of groceries and school supplies furnished by the Education Fund’s Food Forests for Schools program over an eight-week period. These will reach the families of approximately 50 students attending Feinberg Fisher K-8 in Miami Beach and Riverside Elementary School in Little Havana. After the Ford and Argo team collects the bags at each school, the deliveries are made in Ford’s self-driving Ford Fusions with two test specialists.

As the self-driving cars progress along their route, the two specialists — one behind the wheel and one in the passenger seat — will be monitoring the vehicles and the road ahead, ready to take over if necessary, according to Ford. At each drop-off location, one of the Argo test specialists makes a contactless delivery. Argo says it is working with city and state officials and plans to mandate social distancing, institute regular cleaning, and provide personal protective equipment, as well as HEPA-certified filters, air recirculation devices, and physical barriers inside the vehicle’s cabins.

Ford autonomous vehicle business director Navin Kumar says the pilot will provide an opportunity for Argo to refine its self-driving system. Among other challenges, the cars have to find specific locations to make a delivery, park properly, and ensure the drop-off is made safely. They will also encounter a range of locations, including high-rises, duplexes, and small apartment buildings, some without curbside or driveway access, as well as traffic in densely populated areas and residential neighborhoods.

“With each delivery we complete through this pilot, we gain a deeper understanding about how our self-driving services can help organizations and businesses fulfill delivery orders in a safe, reliable, and trusted manner,” Kumar wrote in a blog post. “This is the first time we’ve integrated the self-driving capabilities from Argo with our customer-facing partnerships. This is giving us meaningful real-world insights into what is required to run an efficient business.”

Based on the success of the pilot, Ford says it will continue to expand and refine its moving goods business with similar pilots in 2021.

Ford pushed the unveiling of its driverless service from 2021 to 2022 earlier this year, but it’s business as usual at Argo, which has over 1,000 employees and a $ 7.25 billion valuation. Beyond Ford, Argo has close ties with Volkswagen and is testing in cities around the U.S., including Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh; and Austin.

Ford is only the latest to repurpose its self-driving fleet for charitable deliveries during the pandemic. Some, like Waymo and Cruise, have received pushback from drivers, who say they’re being forced to work in dangerous conditions. According to the Verge, Waymo drivers were recently told to drive in suffocating ash from wildfires and after COVID-19 infection rates had reached new peaks.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Gatik raises $25 million for autonomous short-haul delivery trucks

November 23, 2020 Big Data

Gatik, a startup developing an autonomous vehicle stack for B2B short-haul logistics, today closed a $ 25 million series A round. The company also announced it will bring a fleet of self-driving vans to Canada as part of a deal with Loblaw, the country’s largest retailer with over 200,000 employees.

Some experts predict the pandemic will hasten adoption of autonomous vehicles for delivery. Self-driving cars, vans, and trucks promise to minimize the risk of spreading disease by limiting driver contact. This is particularly true with regard to short-haul freight, which is experiencing a spike in volume during the outbreak. The producer price index for local truckload carriage jumped 20.4% from July to August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, most likely propelled by demand for short-haul distribution from warehouses and distribution centers to ecommerce fulfillment centers and stores.

Palo Alto, California-based Gatik, which has offices in Toronto, is the brainchild of Carnegie Mellon graduate and CEO Gautam Narang. He cofounded the company in 2017 with CTO Arjun Narang and chief engineer and former Ford computer vision lead Apeksha Kumavat.

Gatik’s platform taps level 4 autonomous vehicles (capable of operating with limited human input and oversight in specific conditions and locations, as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers) to fulfill on-demand and scheduled deliveries up to a distance of 200 miles. Its retrofitted trucks and Ford Transit 350 vans and orchestration software, which the company has been testing on public roads in California since Q1 2018, promise to transport goods around city environments more affordably.

For Loblaw, Gatik says it will transport “multi-temperature” goods and products from the retailer’s microfulfillment centers for inventory pooling across multiple locations, multiple times a day, to retail outposts across the Greater Toronto Area beginning January 2021. The program will cover five routes that will operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Gatik’s fleet of Class 1-6 autonomous vehicles moves goods from microfulfilment centers and dark stores to pick-up points like retail stores, distribution centers, and offices — known as the middle mile,” Gatik head of policy and communications Richard Steiner told VentureBeat in a recent interview. “This is critical because the middle mile is the most expensive and challenging part of the supply chain for retailers to contend with. … The key to Gatik’s success involves optimizing fixed, predetermined routes, such as those used along the supply chain’s middle mile, countless times each day. The biggest threat to the autonomous revolution is the unknown, or edge cases, which are substantially reduced on fixed journeys.”

In July, Walmart revealed that it had launched a pilot with Gatik to ferry customer orders between select store locations in Bentonville, Arkansas. Gatik’s vans transport items from a warehouse to neighborhood market stores along a two-mile route (or five-mile one-way route) in Bentonville. Each van makes up to 10 runs a day during daylight, with human backup operators behind the wheel.

More recently, Gatik received a $ 100,000 grant from PlanetM, a Michigan Economic Development Corporation program that seeks to fund solutions to pandemic-driven challenges in Michigan. In collaboration with an unnamed partner, referred to as “one of the state’s largest retailers,” Gatik says its autonomous trucks will operate on predetermined, fixed routes throughout Grand Rapids and Rochester.

Gatik says it will continue to target customers such as third-party logistics providers (like FedEx, UPS, and USPS), consumer goods distributors, food and beverage distributors, medical and pharmaceutical distributors, and auto parts distributors for the foreseeable future. The company has raised a total of over $ 29 million in venture capital. Today’s round was led by Wittington Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, with participation from FM Capital, Intact Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Dynamo, Reilly Brennan’s Trucks VC, Intact Ventures, and AngelPad.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Via acquires delivery logistics startup Fleetonomy to bolster fulfillment with AI

October 1, 2020 Big Data

In a move to expand its business into the logistics and delivery segment, ride-hailing startup Via today announced that it acquired Fleetonomy for an undisclosed sum. Via, which says it plans to apply Fleetonomy’s expertise in demand prediction and fleet utilization to support fully integrated, digitally powered logistics solutions, says the pandemic has highlighted the growing need for essential services and goods delivery.

Tel Aviv-based Fleetonomy, which was founded in 2017 by CEO Israel Duanis and CTO Lior Gerenstein, taps AI to analyze data and deliver insights with the goal of maximizing inventory and promoting proactive maintenance. The company provides white label ride-sharing and on-demand car subscription services that can accommodate semiautonomous and autonomous fleets. With Fleetonomy’s cloud-based suite of tools, managers can simulate services before deploying cars on the road, adjusting for factors such as fleet size, parking, charging locations, demand, and more.

“As we continue to build the next generation of public transportation and delivery infrastructure, we are proud to partner with Fleetonomy to step into this new phase of growth,” Via cofounders Daniel Ramot and Oren Shoval said in a statement. “We have been consistently impressed by Israel, Lior, and the entire Fleetonomy team, and by the beautifully designed and exceptionally engineered products they have created. We share a vision for the future of mobility and look forward to realizing this vision together.”

Prior to the acquisition, Fleetonomy raised $ 3 million in a seed round led by Vertex Ventures, with participation from Kardan Ventures and VectoIQ.

“Today is a very exciting milestone for our company,” Duanis said. “When Lior and I founded Fleetonomy three years ago, we had a very big mission in mind — to provide a new way of managing fleet based services … In the past three years, with the incredible Fleetonomy team and partners along the way, we’ve been very lucky to see this mission turn to reality with customers such as Toyota, Jaguar Land Rover, Audi, and other top players in the mobility space. By joining Via, we will be able to expand and extend this mission and work together on Via’s great vision of changing the landscape of transportation.”

The logistics market is an increasingly attractive investment for companies like Via. Even pre-pandemic, last-mile delivery was fast becoming the most expensive part of the supply chain, with research firm Capgemini pegging the percentage of costs at 41%.

That no doubt factored into Via’s calculation, which faces an uphill battle as the pandemic rages on around the world. In March, Via suspended shared rides in areas like New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, a blow to its shared-ride business consumer model. A report from Edison Trends found that spending on ridesharing plummeted around 21% in the seven-day period ending March 16; Via competitor Uber said gross bookings on rides were down 75% in the three months through June, and Lyft previously said that April ridership was down 75% from April 2019.

Via — which has raised $ 500 million in venture capital to date at a $ 2.25 billion valuation — first launched in New York City in 2013, but it’s now deployed globally in more than 70 cities in 20 countries, operating in Europe as ViaVan in partnership with Mercedes-Benz Vans. As of March, the company says it has provided over 70 million rides, up from 50 million as of July 2019. And Via works with more than 150 partners across municipalities, public transit agencies, transportation operators, corporations, schools, and universities to optimize their transport systems, such as the city of West Sacramento, the Los Angeles Metro, Transport for London, Sydney’s Transport for New South Wales, and the New York City Department of Education.

Via’s ride-sharing app and service tap AI to combine multiple passengers or packages headed in the same direction in real time, ostensibly reducing urban congestion and emissions while providing a lower-cost mobility service. Shared rides are usually from corner-to-corner, requiring passengers to walk to a nearby pickup point indicated on the app.

Last year, Via announced the debut of a driverless shuttle program in New South Wales, Australia, in partnership with the BusBot project, local bus operator Busways, local government agency Transport for New South Wales, and startup EasyMile. More recently, the company launched an on-demand transportation pilot in Sacramento, California, that let customers hail rides from apps and the city’s public transportation department. Just this month, Via unveiled in Edmonton what it claims will be Canada’s largest on-demand transit service, with over 60 shuttles that will connect commuters and residents to transit hubs across the city starting in mid-2021. And in the U.K., Via was awarded a multimillion-dollar grant by Innovate U.K., Britain’s innovation agency, to develop a platform that supports local partners as they optimize emergency and last-mile delivery efforts.

Ramot has said that the end goal for Via is an initial public offering. It’s unclear when that might happen.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Wing launches drone delivery in Christiansburg, Virginia

October 18, 2019 Big Data

As of this afternoon, select residents of Christiansburg, Virginia can tap drones operated by Google parent company Alphabet’s Wing for quick and easy deliveries of packages, over-the-counter medications, snacks, and gifts. The company today revealed that it’s become the first to operate a commercial air delivery service directly to homes in the U.S., with the launch of a previously announced pilot involving FedEx Express, Walgreens, and local Virginia retailer Sugar Magnolia.

Sugar Magnolia will box up birthday cards, small gifts, and sweets for drone delivery customers. From Walgreens, the first retail pharmacy to partner with Wing in the U.S., drone fleets will ferry over-the-counter medicines and other wellness items to folks’ homes. And on the FedEx Express side, recipients living within designated Christiansburg zones who opt in will receive some shipments via drone, in customized boxes. (Wing says that FedEx will complete its first scheduled e-commerce drone delivery today.)

Wing says most deliveries are fulfilled within about 10 minutes.

The pilot was made possible by the small-sized air carrier designation Wing secured from the Federal Aviation Administration in April. The recently expanded classification — which was initially created to cover traditional charter flights — allows the company’s multiple pilots to oversee multiple unmanned aircraft making commercial deliveries simultaneously. Under current drone-specific regulations, companies can’t exact payment for deliveries over distances beyond a human operator’s line of sight.

Earlier this year, Wing became one of the first companies to launch a commercial drone delivery service after Australia’s civil aviation authority, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), granted it approval following more than four years of testing, 70,000 flights, and 3,000 deliveries. Around 100 homes in the suburbs of Crace, Franklin, and Palmerston have access to the service currently, and if all goes well, it will expand to customers in Harrison and Gungahlin.

Current-gen Wing drones can fly at speeds of up to 78 miles per hour and travel up to about 6 miles, and they can take off and land vertically thanks to a dozen vertical rotors and two propellers. Automated flight-planning software determines their route, while a downward-facing camera and other onboard sensors help them avoid obstacles.

Wing’s drones hover about 20 feet in the air during pickup. A tether lowers, and a human operator hooks the package onto the line. The drone winches the package and secures it, after which it travels to a designated location the yard or driveway and lowers and releases the package. Once it detects the package has touched down safely, it heads to the next pickup spot or returns to Wing’s “Nest” in North Christiansburg.

The sophisticated tech could result in a substantial savings for — and smaller carbon footprint from — local businesses, Wing contends. A commissioned report cited $ 9 million in annual cost savings, while a Rand Corporation study forecasted a 6% reduction in energy usage compared to trucks.

But it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.

According to a Wall Street Journal report last year, Wing’s drones have disrupted the lives of some longtime residents, who say that they no longer use their yards as much. (The company says it’s working on quieter and lower-pitched propellers.) User error has resulted in at least one accidental delivery, and the drones are sometimes forced to land due to high winds and obstructions.

In September 2016, the company partnered with fast-casual chain Chipotle in the U.S. to deliver orders for a small group of Virginia Tech students. But only a month later Wing canceled a tentative collaboration with Starbucks over disagreements regarding the handling of customer data, according to Bloomberg.

Despite these bumps in the road, Wing is intent on forging ahead. Burgess recently announced it would launch a free 10-minute drone delivery trial in Helsinki, Finland for items weighing 3.3 pounds or less up to a distance of 6.2 miles. Flight trials began earlier this year in Tampere and continued through the winter.

Alphabet isn’t the only company field-testing autonomous delivery drones, of course. UPS formed a new drone delivery subsidiary in July, which it said will seek FAA approval to operate commercial flights. Amazon launched a trial of its Prime Air drone delivery service for select customers in Cambridge, England in December 2016. Microsoft and startup Flytrex have trialed airborne delivery services in cities like Holly Springs, North Carolina and Wichita, Kansas. In March, Matternet teamed up with UPS to launch an aerial delivery service from WakeMed’s flagship hospital and campus in Raleigh. And in May, Uber announced plans to deliver food by drone in San Diego.

Reports show the commercial drone industry continues to grow quickly, albeit from a small base. A 2017 forecast from Gartner projected the number of commercial drones sold that year would exceed 174,000. Moreover, about $ 454 million was thrown at UAV startups in 2016 alone, and the market is forecasted to be worth $ 127 billion by 2020.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Should Your Restaurant do Delivery In-house or via Third Party?

August 15, 2019 NetSuite

Posted by Kevin Lentz, Restaurant & Hospitality Product Manager

For a large portion of the restaurant community, offering delivery is no longer an option. Guests have come to expect the ease and convenience of online shopping and delivery, and off-premises dining is proving to be a substantial growth opportunity for many. But the question of how to successfully roll out delivery remains a difficult one to answer.

A good starting point is to determine whether to deliver through in-house staff or a third party. One advantage to selecting a third-party delivery service is that you immediately get “experts” in the art of order delivery. Rather than having to build, train and maintain a delivery team, professionals won’t need time to ramp. And the best providers will be able to suggest strategic suggestions for offering delivery, which will lead to a more successful delivery program for your restaurant.

Existing third-party delivery partners bring their drivers, network, route management, communications, payroll and labor management – essentially offering delivery-in-a-box for a speedy rollout. But these companies are under incredible pressure to optimize their solution: to shave seconds here and there, to ensure the optimum route is taken and to deliver all foods at the optimum temperature. Uber is even testing air-drop deliveries via drones. As these companies continue to invest in fulfillment efficiencies, it will become more and more difficult for a restauranteur to keep pace.

And while your delivery partner is sharpening their pencil and focusing solely on getting hot food to customers quickly, you are free to do what you do best: make great food and provide an exceptional guest experience.

All this is not to say that outsourcing delivery doesn’t come with its disadvantages. Perhaps most critically, you lose quite a bit of control in that last 30 feet of the guest experience. It’s important to consider tactics to extend your reach to the guest that are on brand. Packaging, for example, is a prime opportunity to re-claim a bit of the experience in a delivery format.

This loss of control also extends to food quality and presentation. A lot can happen between your restaurant and the customer’s front door, and it can be difficult to capture the quality of the final, delivered product. A solid delivery strategy will include feedback mechanisms to capture guest feedback and more importantly, ensure food safety. But these feedback loops can be challenging to implement, so a solid partnership with your vendor is quite helpful here.

Keeping delivery in-house gives you more control in both of the scenarios above. Additionally, you can rely on your training efforts to ensure a consistent guest experience whether in-store or off-prem, which often isn’t the case when relying on a third party to represent your brand. Also consider the possible inconsistencies and loss of control when it comes to print and digital collateral and menu updates when using a third-party delivery company.

Our discussion wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the cost of outsourcing. As the industry matures, we will likely see several new pricing/business models, so it will remain essential that you keep an eye on the costs, which can significantly erode hard-won margin. Before rolling out delivery, the prepared restaurateur should know the plated cost of each of the menu items. With plated cost established, various pricing and menu configurations can be tested, as well as the impact of delivery to the bottom line. It can’t be stressed enough that the unit economics of each item on the menu be tested in various in-house and outsourced delivery scenarios, as the added cost of delivery can turn cash cows into dogs quickly.

New efficiencies will evolve around meal delivery, and the profitability of delivery methods should be reinvestigated. It is imperative that businesses invest the necessary resources, in time, technology and guest experience to ensure that this fulfillment channel supports the overall business. When implemented atop a thoughtful strategy, delivery offers a tremendous opportunity to delight your guests and boost your bottom line.

Learn about NetSuite’s software for restaurant and hospitality businesses.

Posted on Thu, August 15, 2019
by NetSuite filed under

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The NetSuite Blog

UPS forms new drone delivery subsidiary, will seek FAA approval to operate commercial flights

July 24, 2019 Big Data

UPS is doubling down on a drone logistics and delivery market that’s anticipated to be worth $ 29.06 billion by 2027. Ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings call this evening, it revealed that it has applied to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for Part 135 certification, which would enable it to orchestrate commercial drone flights under a newly formed subsidiary business called UPS Flight Forward.

Part 135 approval, which could come as early as this year, would allow Flight Forward to apply for FAA-certified flight operations beyond line of sight, at night, and without limit to the number of drones or operators in command. That’s because Flight Fordware would be legally designated as a certified air carrier, affording it far more leeway in fleet management than the FAA Part 107 drone rules under which UPS currently operates.

Alphabet X lab graduate Wing took a similar regulatory path to market. It announced in April that it had been certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration as a small-sized air carrier under Part 135 rules, giving it the green light to charge for service and paving the way for pilot programs in the Virginia towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg,

UPS chief transformation and strategy officer Scott Price claims that Part 135 certification would not only enable faster scaling of the company’s drone deployments in targeted markets, but that it would lay the groundwork for one of the first fully certified revenue-generating operations in the U.S. UPS estimates that cutting off just one mile for the routes of each of the company’s 66,000 delivery drivers would amount to $ 50 million in savings.

“UPS is committed to using technology to transform the way we do business,” added Price. “UPS’ formation of a drone delivery company and application to begin regular operations under this level of certification is historic for UPS and for the drone and logistics industries overall.”

It’s yet another step toward drone delivery dominance for UPS, which earlier this year collaborated with drone platform provider Matternet to launch an aerial delivery service from WakeMed’s flagship hospital and campus in Raleigh. In 2016, it teamed up with Zipline and international health care alliance Gavi in 2016 to deliver blood products to remote locations in Rwanda. And in early 2017, it tested a drone that launches from the top of a UPS van to autonomously drop off packages as the delivery driver makes a separate delivery.

UPS is forging ahead against rivals like Amazon, which launched a trial of its Prime Air drone delivery service for select customers in Cambridge, England in December 2016. In the intervening years, companies like Microsoft and startup Flytrex have trialed airborne delivery services in cities like Holly Springs, North Carolina and Wichita, Kansas. In May, Uber announced plans to deliver food by drone in San Diego, and FedEx plans to develop a drone-powered aircraft inspection program in Tennessee.

Reports show the commercial drone industry is continuing to grow quickly, albeit from a small base. A 2017 forecast from Gartner projected the number of commercial drones sold that year would exceed 174,000. Moreover, about $ 454 million was thrown at UAV startups in 2016 alone, and the market is forecast to be worth $ 127 billion by 2020.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Taster’s AI and automation show why virtual kitchens may rule the age of delivery

July 7, 2019 Big Data

The rapid rise of meal delivery services is happening in plain sight, as companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats send riders and drivers zipping around town with takeout of every variety. But as so often happens with new platforms, a secondary and less visible revolution is rippling across the restaurant industry thanks to the rise of virtual kitchens.

London-based Taster is an example of how the intersection of meal delivery services, artificial intelligence, and data is creating opportunities that threaten the restaurant industry with even greater disruption. While meal delivery services initially seemed like a boom for local restaurants, it is virtual kitchens — with their ability to optimize and automate — that may ultimately win the food wars.

Taster was founded two years ago by Anton Soulier, an early employee of Deliveroo who wanted to take this food transformation further.

“I thought there was a big opportunity to build a food company on top of these platforms,” he said. “They are really good at the logistics. My job is to provide the food.”

Delivery services are powering a fundamental shift in the way people buy and consume food, gradually reducing the amount of cooking people do at home in favor of prepared meals delivered on-demand. In 2018 report “Is the Kitchen Dead?“ UBS projected that the $ 35 billion meal delivery economy would grow to $ 365 billion by 2030.

“There could be a scenario where by 2030 most meals currently cooked at home are instead ordered online and delivered from either restaurants or central kitchens,” the report said. “The ramifications for the food retail, food producer, and restaurant industries could be material, as well as the impact on property markets, home appliances, and robotics.”

One effect of this scenario will be continued growth of food delivery services. But this shift will be largely driven by third-party companies seeking to leverage the reach of existing delivery services.

That includes newcomers such as CloudKitchens, a startup from former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick that offers space for chefs who want to launch delivery-only brands. Last year, California-based Kitchen United raised $ 10 million to expand its warehouses, which offer cooking space to delivery-only startups. And earlier this year, Berlin-based Keatz raised $ 13.5 million in new funding for its network of virtual kitchens in places like Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, and Munich.

Meanwhile, delivery platforms themselves have also gotten into the food preparation game. Two years ago, Deliveroo launched Deliveroo Editions to offer data and kitchen space to delivery-only restaurants. Uber has also reportedly been dabbling in this space, testing a service to rent kitchen space to virtual brands. And it’s also working with existing retail restaurants to use their kitchens to house virtual brands that only are available on UberEats.

This means Taster is facing an intensely competitive landscape. Consolidation among these efforts will likely be inevitable. But a look at how Taster works today offers a glimpse into why this trend toward virtual kitchens is accelerating.

Taster has 115 employees (including 100 chefs) working in 11 kitchens. Late last month, it raised $ 8 million in venture capital from Battery Ventures, Heartcore Capital, LocalGlobe, and Founders Future’s Marc Ménasé.

The startup operates a series of kitchens in London, Paris, and Madrid, where it prepares meals that are only available by delivery. These are sold under brands that only exist on these services’ various apps: Out Fry (Korean fried chicken), O Ke Kai (Hawaiian food), and Mission Saigon (Vietnamese). From a consumer perspective, Taster as a brand doesn’t appear in any marketing for these virtual kitchens.

This approach confers a number of immediate advantages over incumbent restaurants. There is no need for a dining room or a pickup counter, which means savings on real estate. Everyone working is solely focused on food preparation, cutting out front of house expenses. And the kitchens can be used to launch additional virtual brands as new opportunities emerge.

“I was watching how people were using Deliveroo every day,” Soulier said. “The growth was just amazing. But traditional restaurants, where you cook for a human coming to eat there, they weren’t very well adapted to a delivery model.”

Because a service like Taster was conceived for delivery, packaging was designed to keep food fresh and hot and menu items are chosen with the idea that they will not be consumed right away, Soulier said.

This approach gets even more powerful when it’s combined with the data Taster receives from delivery platforms, which allows the company to adjust menu items quickly, based on what is most popular, he said.

Taster’s back end is also directly connected to many of its own suppliers. So as menu items are changed, the system updates orders with suppliers.

“It’s a big challenge we wanted to tackle early,” he said. “Being able to place orders directly to suppliers, it really automates the process and reduces waste.”

That data has in turn allowed the company to begin developing its own algorithms to start projecting how supply and demand will vary according to factors like holidays and the weather. The system tracks these fluctuations and automatically adjusts orders.

This part of the business is still emerging. But Soulier is convinced that as the number of kitchens expand and the amount of data grows, the company will be able to go further with artificial intelligence to extend automation and create even more predictive, data-driven operations.

That scale and level of automation is going to make it even tougher in the coming years for single, standalone restaurants to keep up. Consumers are likely to see a growing range of niche eating options based on data collected by these platforms, further boosting adoption. And the virtual kitchen movement will further streamline operations by significantly reducing the risk associated with launching new eateries.

This transformation will ripple far beyond the ability to get sushi delivered by a bike messenger.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Walmart Ups the Ante in Grocery Delivery Competition

June 20, 2019 CRM News and Info

Walmart has a new weapon in the grocery delivery wars against other top e-commerce rivals.

Walmart online shoppers can subscribe to a US$ 98-per-year “Delivery Unlimited” plan that aims to siphon customers from Amazon’s Whole Foods and Target’s home delivery programs.

Online grocery shopping is growing steadily as a key revenue generator and customer draw. The food division was critical in boosting Walmart’s e-commerce performance in the first quarter of this year by 37 percent.

Delivery Unlimited is an expansion of the company’s existing pickup and delivery offerings, which include free delivery to store located near the customer, or home delivery for a $ 9.95 fee per order.

This new annual subscription gives Walmart’s online shoppers a third option. For $ 98 a year or $ 12.95 a month, Walmart customers can skip the per-order fee. They can place their order on Walmart’s site or app and select a window for their order’s delivery.

Overall, the new service offers significant additional convenience for a modest cost, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

“It will be particularly attractive for customers who shop at Walmart more than four or five times per month, like time-pressed families with substantial grocery needs,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

Not Unlimited Details

Walmart customers should not expect full access to home delivery just yet even though the store launched this latest offering over the weekend. The company’s website is vague about where the service now exists.

There is “a good chance Delivery Unlimited is in your area,” the company says in response to a posted FAQ (frequently asked question). Consumers must enter their personal information to sign up for a free trial to find out for sure.

When the Delivery Unlimited trial ends, participating customers automatically become paid subscribers until they cancel. Their provided payment method will be charged in the meantime, and Walmart notes that it does not provide refunds.

Payment methods can not include Walmart gift cards or e-gift cards. Payment must be made by credit card or debit card. Select stores accept EBT (electronic benefit transfer) as a payment method.

How Delivery Unlimited Works

The free delivery process functions the same as Walmart’s standard grocery delivery system. There are no restrictions on delivery times.

What could be a deal-breaker for some potential Delivery nlimited customers is that Walmart so far has no network of delivery professionals or independent contractors. Instead, it partners with delivery providers across the U.S., including Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire, Roadie, Postmates and DoorDash.

Ramping Up Efforts

Walmart in recent months stepped up its efforts to compete against other online retailers. Its initiatives include free, one-day shipping for orders over $ 35, pick up towers at a number of its stores, and an in-home delivery service that allows employees to enter your house to place groceries directly into your refrigerator.

Walmart’s latest home delivery plan seems to target Amazon Prime, which costs $ 119 a year, as well as Target’s new Shipt delivery service, which costs $ 99 a year, and Instacart’s annual Express membership of $ 99.

While it may appear that Walmart’s new Delivery Unlimited service takes direct aim at Amazon Prime, the story likely is more nuanced, according to King. With Prime Amazon sweetens two-day delivery for eligible items with free access to video and other content.

“By focusing specifically on grocery items, Walmart’s offering is more problematic for Amazon’s Whole Foods division, especially when you factor in Walmart’s aggressive grocery pricing,” he said.

Potential Pressure Point

Walmart could be throwing down a new gauntlet in the battle for home delivery grocery customers. The new Delivery Unlimited offering poses an interesting challenge for all retailers, but for Amazon in particular, according to Sarah Assous, senior vice president at
Zoovu. One of the biggest perks when it comes to Amazon and its Prime membership is expedited shipping.

“Now that other retailers are providing similar services with reduced subscription fees, it will be interesting to see how they adapt to and overcome this competition,” she told the E-Commerce Times.

This is an interesting time in retail and e-commerce, as all major retailers are constantly trying to get one up on each another via enhanced customer experience offerings, Assous added.

“This news further puts pressure on the landscape to come up with the ‘next big thing’ to gain yet another advantage and win over customers’ loyalty and hard-earned dollars,” she said.

If the numerous reports that Whole Foods has been struggling financially are correct, Walmart’s Delivery Unlimited is likely to add weight to Amazon’s difficulties, said King.

“This is not a story of two elephants going head to head against one another so much as it is a wily predator identifying the weakest member of a herd and going unmercifully for its throat,” he remarked.

Renewing Efforts

Delivery Unlimited as an online grocery-focused offering is more viable than ShippingPass was as a mass merchandise delivery program, suggested Jack O’Leary, senior analyst at
Edge by Ascential. Membership programs also encourage loyalty. Amazon, Instacart, Target/Shipt and others will be hard-pressed to persuade shoppers who opt-in for Delivery Unlimited to switch to their own platforms.

“This is not Walmart’s first foray into an e-commerce-centric membership program. In 2017 the retailer scrapped its $ 50 per-year ShippingPass program, which offered free two-day delivery on two million items from Walmart.com,” O’Leary told the E-Commerce Times. “It has since invested heavily in its delivery capabilities, progressively offering faster delivery to more of the country for free (above a minimum order threshold).”

With its online grocery pickup solution and current grocery delivery offering, Walmart already has enjoyed success targeting new shopper segments focused on convenience in grocery shopping specifically, he pointed out.

“Upselling this existing base to a program that saves them money on convenient home delivery of groceries is a viable strategy,” O’Leary said. “It also heightens competition with other top online grocery platforms, raising the stakes in the U.S. online grocery capabilities arms race.”

Jack%20M.%20Germain Walmart Ups the Ante in Grocery Delivery Competition
Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open source technologies. He has written numerous reviews of Linux distros and other open source software.
Email Jack.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Buyer

AI Weekly: Amazon’s robots could cut delivery times, but eliminate jobs

June 8, 2019 Big Data

Today marked the end of Amazon’s inaugural re:MARS in Las Vegas, where roughly 3,000 engineers, academics, programmers, astronauts, artists, entrepreneurs, and NBA players from over 40 countries gathered to glean insight from luminaries in machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics, and space travel. It didn’t disappoint with respect to sheer breadth of content: roughly 100 breakout presentations, workshops, and a technical showcase doomed this writer’s mission to cover everything from the start.

Robert Downey Jr., channeling his inner Iron Man, announced the Footprint Coalition on Wednesday, which will seek to significantly “clean up” the planet with the next 11 years. Amazon VP and head scientist for Alexa, Rohit Prasad, introduced Conversations, a deep learning-based way to create Alexa skills with multi-turn dialogue that can interconnect with other Alexa skills. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans detailed the hardware and software underpinning the company’s custom-designed and shuttle-like driverless vehicles. And that was just the tip of a big iceberg.

But what stood out the most to my colleagues and I were the advancements in robotics, and what they could mean for the workforce of the future.

During the first re:MARS keynote, Brad Porter, head of robotics at Amazon, unveiled two new platforms bound for Amazon’s hundreds of fulfillment centers around the world. The first is Pegasus, an item-categorizing system that cuts down mis-sorted goods by 50%. The other is Xanthus, a modular drive system that quickly adapts to new applications. Both make up a portion of the over 200,000 machines that now work alongside the 300,000 human workers in Amazon’s warehouses, which is up from 100,000 machines a year ago.

“Customer expectations for convenience, selection, costs, and especially delivery speed continue to increase, and we realize we need step function changes in robotics,” said Porter.

During that same keynote address, CEO of Amazon worldwide consumer Jeff Wilke revealed a new six-propeller, electric, and fully autonomous Prime Air delivery drone that’ll soon begin delivering packages to customers as part of pilot tests. Amazon is aiming to fulfill deliveries of packages weighing up to five pounds within 30 minutes for shoppers who are within 7.5 miles (up to a maximum of 15 miles) of its warehouses.

And on the penultimate day of re:MARS, chief technology officer and vice president of Amazon Werner Vogels highlighted RoboMaker, Amazon’s cloud robotics service designed to expedite developing, testing, and deploying intelligent machines at scale. “We’re now getting lots of attention and interest [in this],” said Vogels. “If we do this right, we will see the next generation of explorers working on the next generation of robotics technology.”

Amazon’s increased investment in robotics — which arguably began in earnest with its $ 775 million acquisition of Kiva Systems, a Massachusetts-based company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfillment systems, in 2012 — accelerated with its recent purchase of Canvas Technology. The Colorado-based startup is developing a fully autonomous cart system. Even more recently, in warehouses in Seattle, Frankfurt, Milan, Amsterdam, and Manchester, Amazon doubled down with $ 1-million-per-unit machines — CartonWraps and SmartPacs — capable of packing up to 700 products in an hour.

The moves are doubtless reducing operations costs — the savings with CartonWraps and SmartPacs are so substantial that each robot is amortized in less than two years — and furthering Amazon’s ambitious plan to reduce its free shipping option for Prime subscribers from two days down to one.

But it’s a less encouraging development for the human workers whose jobs are at risk of disappearing due to partial or complete automation.

A 2017 analysis published by Quartz found that because of Amazon’s investment in automation and robotic employees, the combined employment at the company and related retailers would decline by a net 24,000 in 2018. Separately, Forrester found that AI could eliminate 10% of U.S. jobs in the coming months, and in the past year, analysts at the World Economic Forum, PricewaterhouseCoopers, McKinsey Global Institute, and Gartner have predicted it could make redundant as many as 75 million jobs by 2025.

Amazon asserts that its robots are assisting rather than replacing its human workers, and it points to its warehouses in places like Florence, N.J., and Kent, Washington as prime examples. There, employees stock shelves which robots whisk away to ready for shipment, and humans — not machines — are the ones responsible for putting products in the cardboard boxes customers ultimately receive.

“[These workers are] finding something, inspecting things, engaging [their] mind in a way that I think is important,” Amazon operations executive Dave Clark told The New York Times in an interview.

Reports lend credence to this idea. Gartner, for instance, anticipates that automation and robotics will create a net 500,000 jobs by 2020 and 2 million in the next five years. McKinsey forecasts that AI could contribute an additional 1.2% to gross domestic product growth (GDP) for the next decade and help to capture an additional 20-25% in net economic benefits (equating to $ 13 trillion globally) in the next 12 years.

In Florence and Kent, no worker lost their job when robots were installed. As Amazon continues to develop and deploy more capable machines like Prime Air drones, delivery rovers like Scout, and warehouse packagers and sorters in its pursuit of efficiency, however, it’s unclear if the pattern will hold.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Tag Archives: Delivery

Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas

VentureBeat

Ford and Argo AI kick off charitable food delivery pilot in Miami

Gatik raises $25 million for autonomous short-haul delivery trucks

Via acquires delivery logistics startup Fleetonomy to bolster fulfillment with AI

Wing launches drone delivery in Christiansburg, Virginia

Should Your Restaurant do Delivery In-house or via Third Party?

UPS forms new drone delivery subsidiary, will seek FAA approval to operate commercial flights

Taster’s AI and automation show why virtual kitchens may rule the age of delivery

Walmart Ups the Ante in Grocery Delivery Competition

Not Unlimited Details

How Delivery Unlimited Works

Ramping Up Efforts

Potential Pressure Point

Renewing Efforts

AI Weekly: Amazon’s robots could cut delivery times, but eliminate jobs

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives