The newest employee at a Tokyo 7-Eleven works through the night without a single break. It silently stocks drinks and other products with mechanical precision, and cleans and mops the floor whenever needed. Of course, this tireless worker isn’t a person; it’s a robot.
We’ve gotten used to companies using AI and robots for marketing and publicity but this time, it’s different. This robot is part of a frontline response to a crisis that could grind Japan to a halt. The country is running out of people.
Innovation Born Out of Necessity
Restocking inventory and mopping floors are probably the types of jobs you’d want robots to carry out. It’s a menial and unrewarding activity, and it takes a fair bit of time. 7-Eleven estimates that employees spend, on average, 1–2 hours per day transporting beverages from storage to display. Why not have a robot do that?
Over the next three months, the company will assess just how effective robots are at saving labor. For now, the trial is underway at Arakawa Nishiogu 7-chome store in Tokyo. If it works fine, they will expand the robot use to other stores. Overall, 7-Eleven officials hope that the robots can reduce employee workload by 30%.
“We aim to increase productivity and create an environment where we can challenge ourselves to create new product assortments and services,” Hiroki Takei, head of operations at 7-Eleven, said in a statement shared with local media.
But while the company presents this as progress, it’s actually a dire need that’s pushing it.
Japan is facing a demographic downturn of unprecedented scale. For years, the nation has witnessed a plummeting birthrate and one of the world’s longest life expectancies. The result is a rapidly aging and shrinking population. The numbers are stark, with around a third of Japan’s population now over the age of 65. The working-age population, the engine of any economy, has been in free fall since the late 1990s.
This labor shortage is an existential threat to the Japanese way of life, and particularly to the “konbini” — the beloved 24/7 convenience stores that have become pillars of Japanese modern society. These stores are community hubs where you can pay bills, pick up packages, print documents, and find a hot meal at 3 a.m. Yet, keeping them staffed around the clock has become a mammoth task for store operators, who are being crushed by the dual pressures of a non-existent labor pool and rising wage costs.
This is the bulldozer driving Japan’s automation push. The country is turning to technology not to replace its human workers, but to supplement them and fill the millions of phantom jobs that have no one to do them. The goal is economic survival.
Extracted in full from: https://www.zmescience.com/future/robots-japan-7-eleven-delivery-shop/
