“and by the end of the year, roughly we should see about 3,000 stores of the 4,600 having deliveries from automated facilities in some way.”

In context

“On automation, where are we on that journey today and how much of the benefits are we seeing in the P&L over the past couple of quarters versus what you expect to flow through over the next several years? And then separately on August comps sound solid. Any early thoughts on back to school, back to college? Thank you. John Furner: Hey, Chuck, it’s John, I'll take that first and I'll start with automation and talk about back to school for a second. As you know, we have a number of facilities and a number of types of facilities around the country that we are automating in the supply chain. We have our regional distribution network, which is primarily an ambient network. Progress there is right where we planned it to be. Continue to be pleased with the progress of our provider in the space, and by the end of the year, roughly we should see about 3,000 stores of the 4,600 having deliveries from automated facilities in some way. So the progress is good. The ability for a store to get a load in that is palletized, it's by aisle, and as we build more density in these centers, not only is it by aisle, in many cases it's by section when an associate needs to stock a pallet, is so helpful. I remember working in stores years ago and it was a bit of a treasure hunt to try to find the items you needed, the cases you needed, but not only our automation, but then the in-store technology to help us locate what we own and know where it is makes it much easier for our associates to access inventory and get those things in front of people. The second type of automation, of course, is perishables. That's a network that we're pretty new in. We have about three facilities that are underway. And then our fulfillment center network”