Walmart is deepening its commitment to an automated supply chain with a deal to acquire grocery automation specialist and partner Alert Innovation. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. David Guggina, senior vice president of innovation and automation at Walmart, announced the planned purchase of Andover, Mass.-based Alert Innovation in a blog post on Thursday. With the addition of the robotics and automation company, Walmart will be better-positioned to leverage its more than 4,700 U.S. stores, situated within 10 miles of 90% of the population, for storage and fulfillment of online orders, he noted.
For years, we have been making big investments in technology and infrastructure across our supply chain to test and learn where we can make the biggest difference in fulfilling customer orders. In recent years, we’ve announced investments in technology for our regional distribution centers and next-generation fulfillment centers. Our market fulfillment centers, or MFCs, are a continuation of these efforts,” Guggina said in the blog. “Today, we are announcing a step forward in the evolution of our supply chain and MFCs. I’m pleased to announce that Walmart has agreed to acquire Alert Innovation, a robotics automation company that develops material-handling technology for automating order fulfillment in retail supply chains
