Wal-Mart Leverages IOT

Good,  relatively simple applications are talked.

Walmart Shows the Way on IoT in Food Retail  in  ProgressiveGrocer  By Thad Rueter - 01/25/2021

Walmart uses IoT technology for a variety of tasks — including keeping ice cream frozen and milk cold.

Get ready to hear a lot more about how Internet of Things (IoT) can improve food retail — especially now that Walmart is working harder to promote its use of the technology.

“Internet of Things,” of course, refers to how physical objects are connected via software, sensors and the internet, with the goal of providing more precise detection, communication, analysis and action — all of which can help businesses run more efficiently, at least in theory.

In a recent blog, Sanjay Radhakrishnan, Walmart’s vice president, global tech, described how the retailer is using IoT technology for a variety of tasks — including keeping ice cream frozen and milk cold.

“As part of our digtal transformation, we’re using Internet of Things (IoT) at a scale unmatched across retail to improve food quality, lower energy consumption and keep costs low for our customers,” Radhakrishnan wrote. “Currently, Walmart manages more than 7 million unique IoT data points across our U.S. stores. Every day, this network of connected devices sends almost 1.5 billion messages regarding temperature, operating functions and energy use.”

The push toward more IoT capability required Walmart to build proprietary software with complex algorithms able to detect abnormal events in real time. All that work can help pay off when it comes to the quality of grocery items.

“Our customers depend on our stores to maintain food at the proper temperature, like keeping ice cream frozen and milk cold,” Radhakrishnan said. “Global Tech is helping our Real Estate team to ensure proper food quality through monitoring our refrigeration units with IoT systems. Our IoT application not only monitors the temperature of the individual unit to ensure proper food safety standards, but also looks at how the equipment is performing and takes proactive steps towards maintenance repairs to reduce the cost and down time caused by equipment failure.”  ... '