Appropriately, a robot was used to bring out the RILA Startup Innovation Award.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association announced the three finalists of its Startup Innovation Award for the Supply Chain Monday at its LINK2020 supply chain conference: Gatik, Invent Analytics, and Magazino.

• Gatik provides autonomous vehicles for business-to-business (B2B) short-haul logistics. These small delivery trucks and vans are designed to operate on set routes between two business sites, such as a distribution center and a retail store or a large retail store hub and a smaller outlet. Mega-retailer Walmart is currently piloting the technology.
• Invent Analytics applies artificial intelligence to inventory and price optimization. For example, the solution can help retailers answer questions such as what inventory levels will be the most profitable for the organization and what is the value of inventory at every point in the supply chain.
• Magazino has created a robot that can pick and put shoe boxes in a distribution center. The robot is designed to work in parallel to human pickers performing the same process. Unlike other goods-to-person or person-to-goods automated solutions, Magazino's robots perform the entire picking activity without interacting with humans, according to the company.

RILA received 50 nominations this year for the award. A panel of retail supply chain executives winnowed those entries down to the three finalists, who presented their solutions during the afternoon general session at the LINK2020 conference on Monday. Conference attendees now have the chance to vote on the winner through the conference's mobile app.