Ocado Technology

A big thank you to Charlie Turrell for inviting me to speak at the Ministry of Justice UK this September! I had the chance to share insights on the importance of adopting a "Shift Left" approach in accessibility. “Shifting left” emphasises considering accessibility from the very beginning of a project, laying the foundation for an inclusive digital experience. By integrating inclusive design, accessible code practices, and testing early in the development process, this approach helps catch and resolve accessibility issues before they become costly or time-consuming. It helps to ensure that accessibility is a core element of the product, not an afterthought—enhancing the user experience for all. Ultimately, this proactive method reduces technical debt and ensures compliance with accessibility standards, leading to more usable and inclusive products. It was an honour to share insights and exchange ideas with such an engaged audience. Let’s continue driving positive change! #Accessibility #ShiftLeft #Inclusion #Ecommerce #DigitalAccessibility #InclusiveDesign [Image description: Digital accessibility event Accessibility - access all areas! 3 days of accessibility events at Ministry of Justice. Making sure everyone can access digital services. We're running 3 days of exciting free accessibility events on Tuesdays in September. This is a great opportunity for you to learn more about accessibility and we have speakers from around the world who are experts in their fields.]

Ocado Technology's Engineering Team Leader, Ed Marwood, shares how his disability has influenced his professional career and the importance of your workplace supporting you. To find out more about life at Ocado, visit: https://lnkd.in/eDYcncmQ #DisabilityEmploymentAwarenessMonth #UniquelyYou #OcadoTechnology

It’s 24 hours of pure innovation, creativity, and collaboration at #HackYeah – one of Europe’s largest hackathons, hosted in #Kraków! 🚀 Our amazing mentors, Adam Niedziałkowski, Konrad Wadas, Piotr Trzeciak, Robert Żegleń, and Damian Wasilenko, were there to guide talents in #AI and #Cybersecurity, helping them unlock their full potential. 🙌 This event went beyond coding - it was about leveraging technology to tackle real-world challenges. We’re proud to have been part of this inspiring experience, alongside thousands of passionate tech enthusiasts! 🌍

Working with people all over the world is one of the things I value most about my role. Delivering large automation projects across the globe is an exciting challenge and requires joint efforts from Ocado teams, our partners and our suppliers. The tight working relationships we build as we roll out our technology means it’s even more special when we get to come together to celebrate our joint successes in person. The last couple of weeks have been particularly exciting; as well as a trip to the USA to visit our friends at Kroger, I was lucky enough to attend the Coles CFC opening ceremony in Melbourne. It makes me proud to see the efforts of all the teams at Ocado Technology pay off when we hit these important milestones with our partners. With two CFCs now live in Australia, our global footprint is expanding ever further and helping more partners offer a top tier experience for their shoppers and run the tightest operations. None of this would have been possible without Ocado Technology’s incredible development and operational teams and all the other teams from across the business who support the roll out of the Ocado Smart Platform around the world. Kudos to all of you!

Every six weeks, we host our New Joiner Events at the Swiftfields Campus, part of the Welwyn Garden City Development Centre. These events bring together our newest team members from across all our UK Centres, helping them connect and share their experiences of joining Ocado Technology. For many, this face-to-face onboarding experience is a unique opportunity to see our groundbreaking Ocado Smart Platform technology up close. There are lots of exciting things that happen at the event, including: - A welcome breakfast to meet fellow colleagues 🧑🏽🤝🧑🏽 - An introduction to the Centre Leadership team, who oversee our Ocado Technology Development Centres 👋 - Discovering the history of the Swiftfields Development Centre ⭐ - Suited up in PPE, take an exclusive tour of the warehouse, where they’ll see everything from test environmental chambers and 3D printing, to our fleet of 600 bots in action on the grid 🤖 - The event wraps up with lunch and a debrief! 😃 These events are not just about learning - they’re about building connections, understanding our tech, and becoming part of our innovation-driven community. #LifeAtOcado #OcadoTechnology #Onboarding #GrowTogether

As part of National Inclusion Week, we spoke with Pierre Harscouet (He/Him), Global Inclusion Specialist who shared his insights on creating a truly inclusive workplace and the importance of always working to improve diversity and inclusion. #NationalInclusionWeek #LifeAtOcado #UniquelyYou

Great to see Ocado Technology listed as the world’s top robotics company! People are often surprised to learn about Ocado’s successes in the robotics space. The grocery sector has an (I think unfair!) perception as traditional and unchanging. This is far from true - thinking up new ways for people to shop for groceries has in fact proven to be a ripe testbed for innovation. There are many reasons why our use-case has led to breakthroughs in robotics but two things stand out. (1) The problems are complex… but not too complex. Online grocery is definitely the toughest automation challenge in the retail space. Inbounding, decanting, picking, packing and shipping thousands of items at different temperature regimes presents an enormous set of engineering problems to solve. Unstructured environments with a huge number of variables mean that in many cases rigidly programmed technologies are not fit for purpose. This is especially true when we think about our robotic picking and packing arms that have to make smart decisions on the fly to handle tens of thousands of different products. This is where robotics innovation comes in. The lack of ‘off the shelf’ technology that could address this led Ocado to develop sophisticated hardware and software in house and deploy the latest AI techniques. But, despite all this complexity, the environments lended themselves to fast tech development, as they weren't so unstructured that we have to deal with infinite variables like you would if robots were out roaming the streets. This means that we sit in a sweet spot. With the smart people we have and the latest tech, we have consistently been able to deploy robotics and AI-based systems that drive real value for our partners. (2) We can innovate at speed. If a bunch of bananas gets bruised in the lab there are no terrible consequences. That means we can foster a ‘no blame environment’ where people are encouraged to learn fast, experiment and make mistakes that help us on the way. This isn’t the case for aerospace or automotive, where the cost of mistakes is so high, which in turn means that it’s easy to get tangled up in all the red tape - all at the cost of progress. This freedom to innovate has allowed us to consistently future-proof our business by looking for the next wave of robotics breakthroughs. My favourite example is the 600 series robot where our engineers took a radically different approach to design. They identified the benefits that ‘lightweighting’ the bot would unlock and spun up a novel design process with additive manufacturing at its core in order to shave off as much weight as possible. This combination of having a problem space that sits in this ‘Goldilocks’ zone and empowering our teams to learn fast and innovate has been central to our success in the robotics space. https://lnkd.in/eXiy8eMQ

Attention tech enthusiasts! We're taking our techBytes meetups on the road and hitting 3 cities this October. Join us for an insider's look at innovations and automation powering our warehouses. ✨ What's on the agenda? Hristo Avramov, Data Science Team Lead, will delve into how our camera calibration algorithm converts CCTV images into precise grid coordinates, significantly enhancing our robots’ efficiency and accuracy. Jacek S., Senior Cloud Engineer, and Miłosz Borowiecki, Product Manager, will guide us through Platform Engineering. They’ll showcase how we’ve unified control systems in the cloud to boost resilience and streamline operations. Get ready to see how we’re making hardware solutions faster and more efficient. ✨ Where can you join us? 📍 Wrocław – October 15 👉RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/edsmaYxD 📍 Kraków – October 17 👉 RSVP here:  https://lnkd.in/ehbSn8Ww 📍 Sofia – October 24 👉 RSVP here:  https://lnkd.in/e2A_DjYz  Come for the insights, connect with peers and enjoy the networking—pizza and drinks are on us! 🍕🥤 #techBytes #meetup #automation #AI #cloud

It's National Inclusion Week and International Happiness at Work Week! 🎇 At Ocado Technology, we believe that fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace is key to driving innovation and happiness at work for our colleagues. Throughout September we've been attending a series of internal webinars exploring an array of topics: - Impact matters: Being an inclusive colleague - Courageous conversations and creating psychological safety - Cultural awareness: Being inclusive across different cultures These webinars are keeping the conversation about inclusivity open throughout Ocado and help us continue to create a workplace where everyone can thrive. To find out more about our DEI approach, visit https://lnkd.in/edpbc5d8 #DEI #InternationalHappinessAtWorkWeek #Diversity

How can Product Discovery shape the success of your products? Join us at our next Product Peak meetup in #Wrocław, where experts Aleksander Uznański and Karol Kłaczyński will share valuable insights and experiences on leveraging Product Discovery—whether you're starting from scratch or enhancing an existing product. 📅 8 October ⏰ 6:00 PM 📍 OcadoTechnology office, Old Town Wrocław Grab your spot: https://lnkd.in/etRxFjgB  and share this invitation with your network - this will be a meaningful event. #ProductPeak #ProductDiscovery #Meetup #Wrocław