By Ed Romaine,VP of marketing and business development, high-performance order fulfillment and manufacturing integrated solutions, at Integrated Systems Design
Kroger’s exclusive partnership with UK-based automated warehouse operator Ocado is under review – a development that could reshape the future of large-scale automated fulfillment and grocery fulfillment in the US.
Mark Hamstra recently reported on this story in Supermarket News, detailing how Kroger is conducting a site-by-site evaluation of its automated fulfillment centers (CFCs) and considering putting greater emphasis on using its 2,700+ store network to fulfill online orders.
This news rattled Ocado’s stock price and has sparked industry-wide discussion about the balance between centralized, highly automated fulfillment and store-based rapid delivery models. [Read more…] about Kroger and Ocado: A Turning Point for Automated Fulfillment – What it Means for Retailers