Robots are taking on repetitive tasks, relieving workload and increasing productivity in Tokyo 7-Eleven stores. At a time when Japan faces a labor crisis, they don’t get their jobs to people: there are simply no people to take them.
The latest “employee” of a 7-Eleven store in Tokyo works all night without a single break. It supplies drinks and other products with mechanical and clean accuracy and washes the floor whenever necessary.
Of course, this tireless worker is not a person – It’s a robot.
We are already used to seeing companies to resort to artificial intelligence and robots for marketing and advertising, but this time it is different. This robot is part of a first -rate response to a crisis that threatens to paralyze Japan: the country is run out of peopletells the.
Replenish stock and wash the floor These are probably tasks that many would rather see delivered to robots. Are works repetitive, little rewarding and that consume time.
7-Eleven estimates that employees spend on average between one to two hours per day to transport beverages from the warehouse to the shelves. Why not leave this task to a robot?
Over the next three months, the company will evaluate to what extent the robots are effective save. For now, the test takes place at the Arakawa Nishiogu 7-Chome store in Tokyo.
If you go well, the use of robots will be extended to other establishments. In total, 7-Eleven officials expect these robots to reduce employee workload in about 30%.
“We want to increase productivity and create an environment where we can challenge us to develop new products and services, ”he says Hiriri Takei7-Eleven Operations Director, in statements to the Japanese media.
But while the company presents the use of robots as progress, the truth is that it is a pressing need.
Japan faces a unprecedented demographic decline. For years the country has registered a falling birth rate and one of the largest hopes of life in the world.
The result is a population to grow old and decrease rapidly. The numbers are expressive: about 1/3 of the Japanese population is currently over 65 years. The active age population – the engine of any economy – has been falling sharply since the late 1990s.
This shortage of labor represents an existential threat the Japanese way of life, especially for konbini – The popular convenience stores open 24 hours a day that became pillars of modern Japanese society.
These establishments function as community centerswhere you can pay bills, raise orders, print documents and buy a hot meal at three in the morning.
However, keep them open and with permanent personnel has become a gigantic task for operators, who face the double pressure of the scarcity of workers and the Salary costs.
This is the “Bulldozer” that is boosting Japan’s bet on automation. The country is resorting to technology not to replace human workers, but to complement them and fill the millions of jobs that simply do not occupy them.
The goal is the economic survival.
Automation in street trade in Japan is not here. Inside stores, other technologies seek to resolve strenuous night shifts.
Some stores already have Remote Service Screen in the boxes: if there is no employee on site, Customers can talk to a remote assistant In real time through a high definition screen, ensuring the operation 24/7 without the need for constant physical presence.
This multifaceted approach – which involves replacement, cleaning, deliveries and service – is a step far beyond the simple self -assembly boxes.
And 7-Eleven is not alone. The online commerce giant Rakuten Group is using similar robots to Deliver Cafes Da StarbuckS while Panasonic tested robots and drones to deliver hot meals from the popular Yoshinoya chain.
O Legal framework is already created: A change to the Japan road traffic law in April 2023 officially authorized the use of these robotS DELIVERY IN PUBLIC SPACE. The race to automate the service sector is underway.
Japan may be at the front, but it is living something that many developed nations They will probably face soon. As populations are old and the workforce shrinks globally, the question of how to keep societies to function becomes increasingly urgent.
In many western countries, the Debate on Automation is dominated by the fear of loss of jobs. Robots are often seen as a threat, about to make human work obsolete.
In Japan, the context is the opposite: The main fear is not that the robots will take jobs to people, but that there are no people “Not enough robots – to do the work you have to do.”
