Test of Item Delivery Among Employees
Beyond Employee Welfare Improvement to Work Assistance
Naver's autonomous delivery robot 'Rookie' will handle deliveries of items such as contracts between employees. It is expanding its scope of activities from enhancing employee welfare, such as delivering coffee and lunchboxes within the company, to supporting work tasks.
According to the IT industry on the 26th, Naver is conducting tests for a robot delivery service for items between employees at its second office building 1784 in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do. Rookie is used when important documents such as contracts or certificates need to be exchanged.
Autonomous driving robot Rookie operating at the convenience store in Naver 1784 building Photo by Naver
The delivery of items between employees reflects internal feedback. As a result of a survey on improvements for Rookie conducted among Naver employees, there was a request to add this function. Considering the transportation of sensitive documents, Naver plans to enhance and test security technologies such as user authentication.
Rookie is a robot developed by Naver Labs, a robotics subsidiary. After the completion of the robot-friendly second office building in 2022, it was deployed throughout the company. Currently, about 110 units are in operation. From January to November last year, it performed approximately 22,000 delivery services.
Naver is gradually expanding Rookie's activity areas. This week, it began a public beta test for delivering items from the in-house convenience store. The robot, which previously delivered packages, beverages, and meals between cafes, restaurants, and offices, is now also entrusted with convenience store deliveries. The main purpose was to increase utilization during the available time from 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM after beverage and meal deliveries.
Through this, collaboration methods with employees with developmental disabilities are also being verified. At Naver’s in-house convenience store, employees with developmental disabilities belonging to Naver Hands, a certified workplace for people with disabilities, are working. They check the ordered items and load them onto Rookie, which then delivers them to each floor. Most deliveries are possible except for products requiring adult verification such as alcoholic beverages or tobacco, or bulky items.
Through various demonstration cases, Naver is systematizing research on human-robot interaction (NHRI). It is meaningful in that it verifies not only the interaction between robots and service users but also the collaboration methods between robots and employees with disabilities.
Naver is knocking on doors to export various technologies verified using 1784 as a testbed, including robots, overseas. Starting with winning a $100 million (about 130 billion KRW) digital twin platform construction project with the Saudi Arabian government in October last year, it is actively targeting the Middle Eastern market.
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