Traditional Food Stores Will Put Assistants At 172 Places

Posted by Narola Infotech on November 14th, 2019

He goes by the name "Marty."

Tall, slow-moving and grey, he's big cartoonish eyes that disguise something special about the latest employee at Giant Food Stores: Marty is deliberate and relentless-- and -- unlike his fellow workers -- he's got the power to operate out quite a seemingly endless number of hours.

Though he doesn't mention much, a little message is constantly plastered to his slender trunk:

"This store is tracked by Marty for your own safety," it reads. "Marty is an autonomous robot which uses picture capturing technology to record debris, spills and other potential dangers to store workers to improve your shopping experience"

Following a pilot program that kicked off in many Pennsylvania shops this past fall, Giant Food Stores announced Monday it will put Martys in every one of the supermarket chain's 172 shops across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. 

The robotic rollout a part of a plan by Giant's parent firm, Ahold Delhaize USA, to deploy about 500 robots to shops such as Martin's Giant and Stop & Shop. The robots will start coming"in waves" over the coming months, according to Giant, which expects to get the devices fully deployed in roughly six months.

"Bringing robotics and Artificial Intelligence by a research lab to the revenue floor has been a very exciting journey, and we were thrilled by the customer reaction in our pilot stores," Nicholas Bertram, president of Giant Food Stores, said in an announcement. "Our associates have worked hard to bring this innovation to life with partners that are amazing "

The robots move around the shop, scanning the floors for spills and trip risks, that are reported to human employees, the business said. After a spill is situated, it is reported by the system which makes noises as it goes after paging them by communicating to employees that are individual.

Marty states, "caution, danger found," to alert clients, but the machine also sends a statement through a store's public address system, alerting associates.

In addition to scanning shelves for items that are out of stock, Marty also does price checks, searching for gaps between the shelf along with the shop's scanning system, Patrick Maturo, manager of the store optimization at Ahold USA, informed PennLive.

The information outlet reported that Marty is equipped with scanners to avoid crashes, is powered by rechargeable lithium batteries and has multiple cameras.

Giant said the robots' efforts free up associates to spend more time serving customers and help decrease the risk due to spilt foods. Maturo stated because work is being done by him, Marty isn't replacing jobs. He explained the customer response has been positive.

Maturo said individuals often"just walk by" robots. "Then there is a huge majority of people that are quite excited to find a robot at the store," he said.

"They tend to take pictures of it, a video of it and selfies using the robot," he further added. "It is very trendy."

In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Marc Perrone, President of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union International Union which represents employees in grocery stores like Kroger, Ralphs, Albertsons, Safeway and Vons -- said technology can be a power for good, but not when it comes at the expense of employees and the economy.

"The competitive growth of automation in retail and grocery stores is a direct threat to the millions of American employees who electricity these industries and the clients they serve," the announcement said. "When employers automate these tasks, they hurt employees who want these jobs to earn a living. Additionally, they shortchange shoppers forcing poor customer service and goods on them for an identical price."

"We'll be watching." The statement added. "It remains to be seen exactly what Giant is finally using this technology "

Giant isn't the only retailer turning to robots to authorities its numerous aisles. Walmart announced plans to place robots in stores across the country at the end of January.

Their occupation: scrubbing the store's expansive aisles and collecting data in the procedure.

Those robot custodians are powered by Brain Corp, a San Diego-based tech company that has partnered with Walmart. The merchant has a fleet of over 100 of those devices operating in its own stores.

A new fleet of robots is now making one of the world's earliest foods

Automation will allow employees to do new jobs in certain industries, but it will not stop millions of people from needing to switch jobs or upgrade their abilities in the coming years, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report published annually.

The analysis estimates that as many as 800 million individuals will lose their jobs to robots from 2030. A few of those jobs seem a good deal like cleaning flooring.

"Actions most susceptible to automation comprise physical ones in predictable surroundings, like operating machinery and preparing fast food," the document states. "Collecting and processing information are two other types of actions that increasingly can be done better and faster with machines."