Closing the Gaps: How CartManager® Ultra Strengthens Store Operations
While automation often provokes fears of job displacement, innovative technologies like the CartManager® Ultra are emerging as workforce multipliers rather than replacements. Technology such as CartManager Ultra enables existing employees to work more productively and more safely.
Physical Demands: Cart collection remains one of retail’s most physically demanding tasks. Employees manually pushing carts face constant lifting, bending, and navigating uneven parking-lot surfaces, moving vehicles, and weather hazards. Powered by a brushless direct current motor, CartManager® Ultra enables employees to collect up to 3 times more carts while significantly reducing the risk of injury. Labor hours associated with cart collection can be reduced up to 50%.
As retailers automate and integrate AI into the next decade, it isn’t always about eliminating positions. Often the best opportunity is to effectively deploy resources to accomplish more with the workers they have. The old model of throwing additional bodies at the problem no longer works when those bodies simply don’t exist.
Rethinking Cart Collection: From Labor Drain to Strategic Efficiency
Cart collection perfectly exemplifies retail’s potential labor challenge. It’s essential yet inefficient, physically demanding yet often undervalued, and traditionally resistant to innovation. Consider these realities:
- Employees typically manage only 10 carts at a time due to safety concerns
- Cart-related injuries spike during peak shopping periods when stores can least afford to lose workers
- Weather conditions exponentially increase both injury risk and collection time
- Manual collection pulls workers away from customer-facing activities, where they add more value
The CartManager® Ultra reimagines this equation. By enabling a single employee to safely manage up to 2 carts, a 150% increase over manual collection, it doesn’t replace workers but amplifies their capabilities. This is workforce multiplication, not substitution.
Learn more about how CartManager® Ultra can help fill the gaps and increase your efficiency here
