Only a few days left till Christmas. To bring an innovative Christmas spirit to its store, Bloomingdale’s is collaborating with ABB Robotics to illustrate the collaboration between humans and robots.
ABB robots ring in the holiday season at Bloomingdale’s iconic New York flagship store (Source: ABBRobotics)
The retailer’s flagship store on 59th Street features ABB robots in the famous Bloomingdale’s storefronts, demonstrating the potential of the technology. In partnership with the company, Bloomingdale’s aims to provide its customers with a unique visual experience and to explore how robot technologies could be used in retail environments.
Bloomingdale’s robots are everywhere in action
Christmas also includes a festively decorated Christmas tree. To show how automation can help here, four ABB robots create an “Autonomous Christmas tree decoration” in one of the retailer’s shop windows. Together, the robot arms mount various gold ornaments on the tree. A few windows away, ABB robots give a concert. Equipped with tambourine, glockenspiel and xylophone, they play Christmas songs such as “Jingle Bells” or “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. A few windows further on you can even do Christmas karaoke.
“We are excited to be part of such an iconic celebration as shoppers in New York kick off the holiday season. As well as bringing some festive cheer to Bloomingdales’ customers, we are showcasing how robotics and automation technology could help revitalize the retail experience. – Marc Segura, Global Head of Service Robotics, ABB
But window dressing is not the only part of Bloomingdale’s Christmas experiment. Inside the store, collaborative YuMI robots from ABB serve customers a selection of coffee. Designed specifically to work alongside humans, the YuMi robot has automated the entire process of brewing coffee.
Robotics will be an indispensable part of the trade in the next few years and is definitely one of the central trends for the coming decade. The experiment by ABB and Bloomingdale’s shows that customers are not averse to robotic helpers and paves the way for new innovative trading technologies.
Post picture: ABB
