Page 40 - Arkansas Trucking Report Volume 22 Issue 6

Year of Innovational Thinking

University of Arkansas’ Innovation Studio celebrates first year, tackling the
problems of retail and logistics

By Bethany May floor of a university parking garage. hooting, taking pictures and posting it
Managing Editor Just inside the lab, a closet contains on YouTube. They enjoy the experience
a small platoon of rolling robots from of that,” Johnson said.
There’s a laboratory on the south Starship Technologies, an Estonian tech The campus has become a testing
side of campus at the University of company. It sounds sci-fi, but the little ground for Starship Technologies after
Arkansas in Fayetteville, where a small white wagons are about the size of a partnering with the Innovation Studio
group of engineering students huddle cooler with an antenna that stands up last year to help bring the product to mar-
around a table to discuss expanding about three feet and a red pennant on ket, test it out on the hills of Fayetteville
payment options at self-checkout sta- its end. They are controlled remotely by and help set up hubs in the U.S.
tions in stores. Inside this lab, students student operators to roll across campus According to Johnson, the low
are addressing some of business’s biggest delivering parcels. stakes environment where students
retail and supply chain issues like asset The studio’s managing director, Dr. are excited to engage the technology is
loss, final mile delivery and improving Clint Johnson, says the students have perfect before the product goes out in
the brick-and-mortar shopping experi- embraced the vehicles and the technolo- the real world. “If something doesn’t go
ence. gy that supports them. When a student right, there’s a lot of brand equity that
The University of Arkansas’ gets a notification that his package is on could get eroded in that space.”
McMillon Innovation Studio was made its way, the whole dorm is often await- Although cases of something going
possible by a donation from Walmart’s ing the robot’s arrival with the kind wrong are a hypothetical at this point,
CEO and Sam M. Walton College of of greeting the FedEx or UPS delivery because he said, they’ve driven “several
Business alumnus Doug McMillon, and driver only dreams of receiving. thousands of miles across the world
since it opened last October, the lab has “There would be whole apartment and have never had an incident of any
proven the potential for innovation can buildings of people outside ...waiting kind.” Even in Estonia, where the prod-
happen anywhere—even on the sixth and watching for it to come down, uct is from, the six wheels the size of

40 Issue 6 2017 | ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT