Behind the scenes: Target creates testing lab in Brooklyn Park
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Jake Krueger stands in front of a storage and sorting system in Target's new Epic Lab. Photo: Nick Halter/Axios
In the big retail race to be fast and efficient, Target this month finished building out an innovation lab in Brooklyn Park, where it can test out new ideas.
Why it matters: One focus of the company's new "Epic Lab" is improving its network of 2,000 stores that double as shipping hubs.
- Those stores are its biggest advantage over Amazon because they're close to customers and offer drive-up capabilities.
Driving the news: Target's director of innovation Jake Krueger gave Axios an exclusive tour of the 38,000-square-foot facility last week, just after it had opened a couple of miles from the company's north metro campus.
What's inside: A handful of Target employees work there daily, but rotating teams come through to tinker with new equipment and processes.
- There's a mock drive-up packing station on one side and a robotic sorting machine on the other, with plenty of space to add additional tests later.
What they're saying: This type of experimenting previously took place in stores and in distribution centers, but if something went wrong, the stakes were higher, Krueger explained.
Zoom in: One of the first big tests is a large, automated storage and retrieval system in which products are placed into totes that are stacked inside.
How it works: The system allows employees to split up large boxes at distribution centers and sort them into totes that are easier for stores to process.
- "This helps simplify and shrink down the footprint of all of that," Krueger says.
- Since the systems are modular, Target could eventually scale them down to fit in the back rooms of stores, where employees could quickly and easily pack boxes for drive-up or shipping orders instead of walking around the store to find products.
The bottom line: Target early on began using stores to ship products, which has put more strain on store employees, who have had to double up on traditional retail functions and e-commerce.
- A goal of the Epic Lab, Krueger says, is to make their jobs easier.