Sam’s Club has developed an automated and 100% touchless health screening kiosk for their associates. The new health screening kiosk, currently rolling out to the clubs across the country, enables a safer, quicker and more reliable COVID-19 screening procedure. The contactless kiosk will be equipped with patent-pending technology including: a built-in body temperature scanner, a camera sensor able to verify identity from a distance and a digital health screening questionnaire activated by hand motion.
The creation of the kiosk began with a question: how can Sam’s Club conduct health screenings in the most safe and efficient way? Manual screening presented risks and third-party options could not accommodate the needs of all of the clubs. So, what did it take to find an answer?
A little bit of ingenuity and a lot of collaboration from one of Sam’s Club’s cross-functional teams. “After reviewing hundreds of third-party options, our team realized Sam’s Club had the capability to build a better equipped kiosk ourselves,” Ben Ellison, product manager, said. “So that’s exactly what we did.”
Describing the benefits behind this decision, Ginese Colletti, Director of Software Engineering said: “Few health screening options on the market are truly touchless. We knew if we could create our own first-class screening technology and make our kiosk completely contactless, Sam’s Club would be able to lower risk of exposure for our associates, streamline the screening process and seamlessly grow the product.”
With the set goal to create Sam’s Club-specific screening technology, the end-to-end team—including associates from operations, technology, product and more—sprang to action. “Despite stay-at-home orders and restricted access to our equipment, software engineer Ryan Giovacchini was able to create a working prototype within a single day using his 3D printer at home,” said Ben Ellison. Then, with prototype in hand, the team began testing and collecting feedback inside the club. “We’ve made over a hundred iterations based on what we learned from our associates,” Ginese said. “From adding instructional signage to ensuring the protection of sensitive health data, we are taking all the essential steps to optimize functionality, safety and security.” Now, the iterative process hums along at full speed as Sam’s Club prepares to bring the automated health screening kiosk to all of the nearly 600 clubs.
