Dive Brief:
- Walmart has deployed inventory-tracking sensors across its supply chain through a collaboration with Wiliot, providing more data for the retailer's artificial intelligence push.
- Data from Wiliot's ambient Internet of Things sensors aim to help Walmart improve its supply chain efficiency, inventory accuracy and cold chain compliance via real-time insights into stock levels and locations, according to an Oct. 2 news release.
- The sensors provide automated alerts and reduce manual tasks for employees, per the release. They are currently deployed across 500 Walmart stores, with a national expansion covering 4,600 retail locations and 40-plus distribution centers planned for 2026.
Dive Insight:
Millions of Wiliot sensors, called Pixels, are already deployed on pallets moving from distribution centers to stores throughout Walmart's supply chain, said Julien Bellanger, Wiliot's president, in an interview with Supply Chain Dive. The company eventually aims to enable tagging at the case level for Walmart, rather than the pallet level, so the retailer can track inventory in an even more granular fashion, he added.
The sensors are particularly helpful in cold chain applications, such as making sure produce is quickly moved to a cooler once it reaches a store, according to Bellanger. They also provide automatic signals that make it easier to know where a pallet is in real time.
"Positive confirmation of receipts in supply chain, as you know, is very important," he said. "No manual scanning, no paper trail, just a signal that is automatically created based on real data, and that both the supplier and Walmart will capture eventually."
Wiliot's sensors feed inventory data into Walmart's AI systems. The collaboration comes as Walmart scales up its use of AI in its supply chain, with inventory management being a key focus area for the technology.
"With Wiliot's ambient IoT technology, coupled with our AI systems, we're not only optimizing our supply chain to make faster, smarter inventory decisions, but we're also tackling one of the hardest problems in retail—knowing exactly what we own and where it is at any given moment," Greg Cathey, Walmart SVP of transformation and innovation, said in the release.
