Walmart Plans To Have 65% Of Their Locations Fully Automated By 2026

The following is a press release from Walmart Inc., published on April 4th:

Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is kicking off its two-day 2023 Investment Community meeting, where leadership will highlight how the company is investing to strengthen its business through its people and an unparalleled, next generation supply chain network of stores, clubs, and fulfillment centers and driving future global growth opportunities across its omnichannel ecosystem and high value initiatives. The company is also reiterating its first quarter and full-year guidance for fiscal year 2024.

We are in a unique position to serve our customers and members however they want to shop, which will fuel continued growth. As we grow, we will improve our operating margin through productivity advancements and our category and business mix, and drive returns through operating margin expansion and capital prioritization.

Doug McMillon, Walmart president and chief executive officer, said

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A People-Led, Tech-Powered Omnichannel Retailer

As part of the meeting, the company is highlighting its purpose, unique culture and the importance of its associates and unveiling its plan for a new more connected and automated supply chain which will improve the experience for its customers and associates and simultaneously increase productivity.

Through its extensive work, Walmart is reengineering its supply chain to fulfill customer needs with a more intelligent and connected omnichannel network that is enabled by greater use of data, more intelligent software and automation. The outcome improves in-stock, inventory accuracy and flow whether customers shop in stores, pickup, or have a delivery.

Walmart showcased its supply chain innovation Tuesday at its Brooksville, Fla., regional distribution center, as one piece of how the company is building a scaled system of supply chain capabilities that uses a combination of data, software and robotics. Through automation and state-of-the-art technology, the company illustrated how the increased item storage allows the distribution center to provide a more consistent, predictable and higher quality delivery service to stores and customers and react more quickly to customer demand.

Stores operate as a place to shop and as fulfillment centers and delivery stations. Distribution and fulfillment centers hold a mix of items, from suppliers and sellers. This allows Walmart to use its existing assets more flexibly and efficiently for new ways of working.

By the end of Fiscal Year 2026, Walmart believes roughly 65% of stores will be serviced by automation, approximately 55% of the fulfillment center volume will move through automated facilities, and unit cost averages could improve by approximately 20%.

As the changes are implemented across the business, one of the outcomes is roles that require less physical labor but have a higher rate of pay. Over time, the company anticipates increased throughput per person, due to the automation while maintaining or even increasing its number of associates as new roles are created.

It all starts with our associates. We are a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer. As it relates to being people-led, it’s about purpose, values, culture, opportunity and belonging.

We serve our associates by creating opportunities. Opportunities that turn jobs into careers. We help bring dignity to work by enabling them to see how they’re serving others, as part of a team, and helping them achieve their potential. And as we serve them, they serve our customers and members well…they make the difference.

McMillon said.

SEE: Walmart To Fulfill Orders With Robots In Automated Local Fulfillment Centers

Financial Framework

Walmart will outline how the company expects its growth investments to transform its financial profile, centering on three key building blocks: sales growth from its omni-channel business model; diversifying earnings streams through improved category and business mix; and scaling proven, high-return investments that drive operating leverage and improve incremental operating margins.

We believe that we have the building blocks in place to help define the next chapter of retail and do so while driving strong growth and shareholder returns.

Looking at where we are today, we believe that approximately 4% sales growth, and growing operating income at a faster rate, are still the appropriate targets for our business over the next 3-5 years. The investments we’ve made have positioned us well and stand to generate steady and sustained growth at higher margins.

Achieving our targeted 4% sales growth over the next five years would add more than $130 billion of sales on top of our roughly $600 billion base today. On top of that, we think the opportunity for operating income growth over the next 3-5 years could be better than what we’ve outlined.

John David Rainey, Walmart executive vice president and chief financial officer, said

Walmart’s multi-year growth outlook assumes all three business segments contribute to its mid-single-digit sales growth target. The company is strengthening its global omni-channel ecosystem and scaling higher-margin value streams that serve customers and businesses and are natural connectors to its omnichannel retail business. This includes advertising, data, memberships and marketplace, all initiatives that will help deliver a better customer and member experience while driving stronger returns.

SEE: Walmart To Begin Charging 42₵ Per Shopping Bag In Some Locations To Reduce Pollution

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

When Walmart says: “As the changes are implemented across the business, one of the outcomes is roles that require less physical labor but have a higher rate of pay. Over time, the company anticipates increased throughput per person, due to the automation while maintaining or even increasing its number of associates as new roles are created” – this is just a giant word salad to say that they are replacing people’s jobs with robots and AI. There will be no pay raises because the employee size will be trimmed down.

Walmart just laid-off 2,000 warehouse workers because of this shift to automation, something that they were already in the process of. Meanwhile they are also closing down more locations in some parts of the United States, namely the last two in Portland, Oregon, because the crime has gotten that bad there; and we know that the clientele and shoppers at Walmart, many of them, are quite trashy, rude, disgusting, drugged-up, and so on; so for Walmart to totally pull out in Portland tells you just how bad it is.

Many employees in America are demanding pay raises and companies and corporations simply do not want to budge any further, as real wages continue to get destroyed by inflation. Therefore many Americans refuse to go back to work, and those that are “working” at these places are so braindead and lazy. Walmart is trimming the fat. They, like everything else, are going automated.

This, again is what a core tenet of the smart cities by 2030: everyone in the cities are serviced by the robots.

The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.

Proverbs 21:25

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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