ITECH1100: Machine Vision's Transformative Role in Retail

This report delves into the burgeoning impact of machine vision on the retail industry, examining its transformative potential across various aspects of retail operations. It highlights the significant growth in machine vision technology, driven by the need for capital expenditures and its early stages of disruption. The report defines machine vision as a combination of software and hardware using digital sensors to capture and process images for operational control, promising enhanced accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and reliability. It explores how this technology is poised to revolutionize customer service and inventory management. The report discusses the impact of machine vision on robots, smart shipping, and customer service, alongside ethical and regulatory considerations. It emphasizes the changes in retail processes, including customer service and goods movement, and how mobile bots with machine vision can improve efficiency and reduce costs. The report concludes by analyzing the potential ramifications of machine vision, including its impact on customer service and the movement of goods within the retail sector.

Running head: MACHINE VISION AND RETAIL 1
The Potential Impact of Machine Vision on the Retail Industry
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The Potential Impact of Machine Vision on the Retail Industry
Presently, the impacts of machine vision is surging. As reported by the machine vision
trade organization, sales of the components and systems of machine vision demonstrated
unimaginable growth machine vision deployment in the year 2018, especially in the retail
industry. This is certainly driven by the need a lead of capital expenditures in the industry.
However, this is just the initial stages of this technology in the industry; its disruptive potential
impacts are yet to be felt.
The machine vision technology
The machine vision is an umbrella term encompassing all industrial as well as non-
industrial applications where a combination of software and hardware are used in providing
operational control of devices to execute their functions by capturing and processing images.
This innovation promise accuracy, low cost, high reliability, as well as high robustness among
other numerous potential impacts (Wang, Tian, Li, A., & Li, H., 2013). Machine vision works on
basis of digital sensors which are secured inside cameras with special optics that capture images
which are further processed and analyzed by computer hardware and software for decision
making. With all these powerful features, it can be noted that this technology is likely to pose a
considerable wide ranging impacts in the retail industry including but not limited to customer
service, and store inventory management.
Retail industry
The innovation of online retails have been one of the main disruptive force in the retail
industry at present. In the past, retailers struggled to provide such type of convenience to
customers, however, they found a success by reducing the operational costs and at the same time

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offering the best services to their consumers in their online platform with the invention of the
online retail (Wu, Tseng, Chen, Yao & Chang, 2016; King, Hammond & Harrington, 2017).
However, another new technology has come as an essential technology to the retailers’ efforts in
creating more fascinating experience to their customers and ensure efficiency in their business
operations. Machine Vision has proven to be the next technology that is set to pose a
considerable impact on the retail industry (Labudzki, Legutko & Raos, 2014).
Ways machine Vision may cause changes in the retail industry
Machine vision promise potential impacts in the retail industries in various ways
including but not limited to the following (Blackmail, 2017):
Robots: this technology is capable of handling items when the items arrive in the store. The
retail robots have started changing how employees work in the retail as well as how the
consumer finds their desired products in the store.
Smart shipping: shipping goods have been one of the major problems that have been faced by
retailers in the present days (Sundmaeker, Guillemin, Friess & Woelfflé, 2010). As the delivery
services are some of the business process that have been challenging for many retailers, Machine
vision now help the retailers in automation and increasing efficiency in the process.
Customer service: customer service is another aspect that is targeted by the disruptive
technology that is yet to venture the retail industry. At present, the emergence of the artificial
intelligence in the retail sectors has made customer service easy. Chatbots are now providing the
services that were offered by human employees (Liu, Zhou, Zou, Yeh & Zheng, 2018). However,
the invention of machine vision is yet to impose additional ramification in the retail sector,

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especially in the physical retail. This will lead to further improvement in the customer experience
as it cuts down the operation cost.
Regulation and ethics
While robots may have a considerable disruptive impacts in the retail sector, its impacts may
face various ethical constraints constraint. In this section, we review the ethical constraints with
regards to the Lawrence Lessings regulations.
1. As with norms in various cultures, people’s privacy should not be exposed. But robots
may capture about employees including their private details, as such, they have to be
restricted due to the privacy norm.
2. Architecture, on the other hand involve development of the robots with environmental
considerations in mind. The technology is limited by the prioritization of the resources
for while making the robots.
3. On the market norms, the pricing policies restrict this eruptive technology.
4. Additionally, the employment laws under market may also limit adoption of this
technology.
Disruption
The retail process
Customer service and movement of goods process description
Customer service and movement of physical goods is an integral part of business in the
retail industry. These processes involves the effective and efficient movement of goods and
services from one location to another within the retail. In the retail, goods are moved from one

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place to another, this may occur during customer service or when offloading items from trucks.
For example, consider an event where goods are offloaded from trucks to the store and when
moving the goods from the store to customer service desk. Mobile bots with machine vision are
used to help in the movement process. This process occur in various wholesaling and retailing
channels, it also involve various critical decision including transportation, inventory control to
mention a few. The outcome of this process is that the business operation efficiency will be
improved compared to when human beings are doing the task. Additionally, the business
operation cost will be greatly reduced due to the reduction of the number of employees which
results from the automation.
This sector have received a considerable attention of retailers in the last years due to the
reason that this process represents almost a half of the business’s total expenditure. As such, by
coming up with a way of automating the movement of goods during this process, retail business
can be assured a continued success in the fast changing competitive business environment.
Figure 1: The effect of Machine vision on customer service and movement of goods

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How the process would be affected by the change
This disruptive technology will lead to change in the retail processes. The processes that
will be affected by this technology in the retail industry including customer service and
movement of goods.
The process will be affected by the use of robots, the robots with machine vision
technology will change the traditional manual way of customer service that are used in physical
retails. The robots have the capability to navigate through the store and identify customers
(Labudzki & Legutko, 2011). They will guide the customers in searching for their desired
products, they will are also capable of recognizing customer’s facial expression.
Additionally, retail shops have been spending a considerable capital on labor for moving
goods from one place to another in the retail. The invention of machine vision is going to
eliminate this. Through autonomous mobile robots, retail operators will be capable of moving
goods in the warehouse without any labor. The robots have machine vision system embedded in
them as well as other sensing technologies that help in autonomous navigation and movement of
goods within the warehouse.
To conclude, this article has analyzed the potential impacts of machine vision in retail
industry. It can be concluded that that machine vision has potential ramifications in the industry
some of which include the impacts on customer services and movement of goods within the
retail.

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References
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discussion at the European Machine Vision Forum in Vienna. Greg Blackmail
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King, B. A., Hammond, T., & Harrington, J. (2017). Disruptive Technology: Economic
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Labudzki, R., & Legutko, S. (2011). Applications of machine vision. Manufact Ind Eng, 2, 27-
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Labudzki, R., Legutko, S., & Raos, P. (2014). The essence and applications of machine
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Liu, L., Zhou, B., Zou, Z., Yeh, S. C., & Zheng, L. (2018, September). A smart unstaffed retail
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Things, European Commision, 3(3), 34-36.

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