I feel that we are entering an era where automation will take over some of the roles of humans in the world of retail. The vending machines have evolved from simple canned drinks dispensers to selling bread, chips, and snacks.
A recent development is a vending machine that makes fresh orange juice has been a popular choice for people who are conscious about their health. It blew my mind when I first experienced buying a cup of freshly squeezed oranges that was made by a machine. In the virtual world, automation is everything. We all want to make things easy and consistent so we turn to programming to create software that does things for us in an automated way.
Our enthusiasm for automation has also led to the development of home automation. Isn't cool how we can control the functionality of our home using our home?
I think it's so cool that we are already able to monitor our house without our physical actions other than my phone.
The grocery stores have already implemented unmanned payment kiosks where customers will be the ones to scan all their items and make payments by themselves. Everything is to be done by the customers from the sorting of the items and putting them in the bag. There's still 1 staff that will assist the customers whenever they are having issues with their transactions or if they need assistance. It's considered a good improvement because there's no need for more cashier attendants and baggers to do all the things that the customers can do by themselves. I think it's an efficient way of doing business.
A while ago, I was checking the news and saw that there is a patisserie brand in Japan that is unmanned. It means that the customers may freely go into the shop and pick the bread or pastries that they want and pay for it by themselves. It's an interesting shift because I have never seen a bakery without any attendants. It feels like Japan is living in the future or at least a step ahead of everyone else when it comes to technology.
Hopefully, someday I'll have the opportunity to visit this kind of patisserie in the future.
