It has become quite apparent that Vancouver has become one of the biggest winners of Amazon HQ2, following the company’s decision to pull out of its plan to place half of the second headquarters in New York City early this year.

A recent report by The Globe and Mail, confirming a further expansion in Vancouver, aligns with overwhelming real estate industry speculation that Amazon will take over the remaining office space at The Post — QuadReal Property Group’s redevelopment of the old Canada Post building in downtown Vancouver.

But the plan now is to occupy all 1.13 million sq. ft. of office space in The Post’s podium and two towers, which is enough workspace for as many as 10,000 employees, making Amazon the single largest corporate employer in downtown Vancouver.

As automation changes the way people live and work every day, jobs in artificial intelligence are proving to be some of the biggest career opportunities of our time.

LinkedIn’s 2020 Emerging Jobs Report names artificial intelligence specialist as the job that saw the most growth in the the past five years. The career site looked at each job’s growth rate in hiring every year, averaged over the past five years, to determine the emerging jobs list.

Albertsons is eager to stay on the cutting-edge of the industry, investigating and investing in new avenues of innovative growth. The retailer has partnered with Takeoff Technologies since 2018 and has since placed its focus on micro-fulfillment centers (MFC). Albertsons is continuing at full speed to collaborate with the tech company on more and better MFCs, including those it plans to purchase from Takeoff, and the ones yet to be constructed.

“The micro-fulfillment center model is a key element in the store of the future,” said Vivek Sankaran, President and Chief Executive Officer of Albertsons. “It combines the efficiency of automation with the ease of meeting customers when and how they want to shop. In working with Takeoff, we can evolve how the MFC ties into our store and e-commerce ecosystems and accelerate our path to best serve our customers.”

Deutsche Bahn has a project called S-Bahn, which is all about automation. As part of that Nokia has won the work to test and deliver what it claims will be the world’s first 5G SA system for automated rail operation. At this stage it’s all about proof-of-concept and finding out whether 5G is mature enough to be used as the connectivity layer for digitalized rail operations.

As the grocery industry explores technologies to efficiently meet demand for local e-commerce fulfillment, a company out of Norway is pushing a different kind of robotic system using a proprietary cube storage similar to that used by Ocado but in a flexible footprint capable of fitting into an existing grocery store.

Ahold Delhaize's biggest effort in recent months has been the introduction of click-and-collect to more stores and more banners. In January, the company launched Giant Direct, powered by Peapod, at Giant Food Stores. The launch included a dedicated 38,000-square-foot e-commerce hub in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to manage deliveries and offer pickup for shoppers. Giant Direct has since rolled out to 115 locations and should be available to 90% of the banner’s shoppers by year’s end.

Ahold Delhaize is also looking at different fulfillment options, such as the micro-fulfillment facility being tested at Stop & Shop. Micro-fulfillment allows the company to be more effective and offer faster, more efficient delivery and click-and-collect.

Launched in 2018 and now supporting five of France’s leading grocery retailers (Monoprix, Carrefour, Auchan, Chronodrive and E.Leclerc), Jow’s app claims to let you complete your weekly online food shop in as little as a minute (once you’ve been on-boarded, of course).

It does this by creating customised menus, tailored to each user and household, and then automatically fills your online shopping cart with the required ingredients. The idea is to answer the question: “what’s for dinner tonight?” while providing a more cost-effective alternative to recipe kits such as Blue Apron or HelloFresh, and less reliance on take-outs from the likes of Deliveroo or Uber Eats.

“Doing your weekly shopping online can take you up to one hour,” says Jow co-founder and CEO Jacques-Edouard Sabatier. “You waste a lot of time looking for the right product category, sub category, scrolling through hundreds of references, you finally find your product, put it in your cart, and repeat this process up to 40 times (the number of items in your cart)! It’s a horrendous experience, with no added value at all for the customer.”

That’s in contrast to brick and mortar grocery shopping, argues Sabatier, where there is an opportunity to “feel, taste and smell the products.” He says it’s the terrible user experience of grocery shopping online that has limited its e-grocery growth. Jow aims to change that.

Rennes , France: NewCold has begun construction of another automated coldstore in Montauban-de-Bretagne, near Rennes which at 700,000 cubic metres will be one of the largest in France

OnRobot Takes Robot Compatibility to the Next Level with the OnRobot One-System Solution. New unified mechanical and electrical interface for any OnRobot end-of-arm tooling (EoAT) dramatically simplifies automation with a single platform for a full range of collaborative and light industrial robotic systems.

The Trump administration is considering putting some of Amazon.com Inc’s overseas websites on a list of global marketplaces known for counterfeit goods, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The action would be taken by the US Trade Representative’s Office through its annual “notorious markets” list, the report said, adding that no decisions had been made and that similar proposals last year were eventually discarded.

Blockchain, like many other emerging technologies, is enthusiastically touted as a solution to many of the world’s problems. Perhaps because of its relation to cryptocurrency or the narrative prophecies that surround them both, blockchain draws both criticism and praise from a staggering array of sectors.

However, with the big blockchain push from Chinese President Xi Jinping along with many tech, finance and industry giants piloting blockchain implementation, the number of use cases grows with each passing day. While cryptocurrency more often draws ire from the mainstream financial world, it seems that for blockchain, the sky’s the limit — but not for long.

A combination of blockchain and 3D printing for aircraft parts may launch the technology into the stratosphere. Cointelegraph spoke to major players in aerospace, including Ernst & Young’s global blockchain leader about blockchain’s vast potential to impact global business through 3D printing.

Amazon is testing a new inventory storage service, designed to help meet holiday demand and its next-day shipping commitment without overcrowding its warehouses or running out of products. The service, known as Amazon Storage and Replenishment, enables Amazon merchants to stage inventory in temporary locations close to Amazon’s delivery facilities so that products can be replenished quickly.

Amazon is piloting the program in a warehouse in Ontario, Calif., approximately 20 miles from its closest facilities, and reportedly has plans to bring the program to other markets, according to Bloomberg. Amazon invited merchants who use Fulfillment By Amazon, its logistics service, to try the new program earlier this year.

Norwegian robotics company AutoStore won Business of the Year with Turnover of €150 million or higher at the European Business Awards presented earlier this week in Warsaw, Poland.

The Awards are one of the most established business competitions, which recognizes Europe’s leading companies each year.

The 540,000 sq ft facility, which includes a 43m-tall conveyor and is designed to support the perfume and cosmetics sector, uses an estimated 40 per cent less energy than the average warehouse in the same category.

Blockchain technology as a potential solution has been applied to all of the large ecosystems that have issues with real-time data access, partners privacy, traceability and auditability. The supply chain ecosystem is no exception to that, as typical product recalls cost $8 million per year and this number can be reduced with the improved track-and-trace features of blockchain. According to Gartner, by 2023, 30 percent of manufacturing companies with more than $5B in revenue will have implemented projects leveraging blockchain. The key drivers for supply chain blockchain adoption are increased cost savings, enhanced traceability and greater transparency. This means a lot even for giants like Walmart, Carrefour, Nestle and Dole, all of which are part of IBM’s Food Trust provenance project.

Prologis Inc., the largest warehouse provider in the U.S., wrapped up construction of a three-story distribution center in Seattle in October of last year. The 590,000-square-foot project, called Georgetown Crossroads, is the nation’s first logistics property to have multiple floors that are serviceable by large delivery trucks. Amazon has reportedly agreed to take up about 500,000 square feet in the warehouse, with Home Depot also planning to lease space.

CBRE is tracking at least 13 multistory warehouse projects completed or in the pipeline in New York City, San Francisco and Seattle.

You need to get a lot closer to people. The speed at which things have to move through the supply chain to get to wherever they need to go has increased dramatically over the past several years.

David Egan, global head of industrial and logistics research at real estate brokerage CBRE

Warehouse Automation Canada is looking for end user companies for partnership to pilot or test new warehouse automation and robotics solutions.

Canadian companies interested in submitting an application for warehouse and robotics pilot project, please contact our marketing department at sylvie@warehouseequipment.ca

The Future of Retailing by JDL

The world of fashion is rapidly being transformed by so called “fast fashion” retailers. The rise of e-commerce upstarts like Boohoo and Nasty Gal to established giants like Amazon — is driving greater online fashion consumption. Retailers like Inditex have set the pace for agile supply chains by sourcing production close to its headquarters to make its lead times speedier. The Zara brand for example, takes about 10 to 15 days to bring a new item from concept to shop floor.

This shift toward speed has forced companies like Mango, which take up to six weeks to bring their products to market, to rapidly update their bricks-and-mortar retail models for the digital age.

This has led Mango to recently open a new logistics center in Spain that will speed up deliveries and fulfillment. Items selected to be shipped to Mango’s stores will be using predictive models and data analysis systems, carried out by the company’s integrated Warehouse Management System.

Following Zara’s footsteps, Mango will not replenish but instead replaces sold-out styles with new looks. That way, shoppers know to purchase an item when they see it because they might not have the opportunity to again, resulting in fewer markdowns and stronger margins.