The Giant grocery store as the Shoppes at Ryan Park in Ashburn (off Shellhorn Road) has a new employee — one that never gets tired and doesn’t get paid.
It’s Marty the Robot, one of hundreds of Martys the supermarket chain is rolling out to stores across the company.
The grey colored, slow-moving robot is really just a pole on a base. But the addition of some googly eyes and a name tag make Marty seem more personable.
The robots first started rolling out to Giant stores earlier this year and according to news reports, Marty serves several purposes.
- Using a spinning round scanner, he searches the shelves for prices that don’t match the store’s check-out system.
- He looks for items that are low or sold out so staff know to reorder and restock.
- Marty apparently also looks for spills and other hazards and alerts employees.
- He can reportedly even make announcements over the PA system to alert shoppers to a spill. “Clean up in Aisle 3.”
- Marty has sensors to keep him from bumping into stationary objects as well as shoppers.
This is apparently the first Marty in Ashburn. Quick calls to the Ashburn Farm and Ashburn Village Giants confirmed they don’t have the robots yet. It’s possible there are other Giants in Loudoun with a Marty, but the Ashburn one is the first we’ve heard about.
Here’s a short video The Burn shot so you can see Marty in action (and we use the word “action” loosely).
As long as it speaks English I’m ok with this. If it gets snarky, even better.
Finally!
Look for more of this type of automation to replace humans as the minimum wage rises for “feel good” politics-based reasons that have nothing to do with supply and demand for labor.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Yeah I love our Marty the robot in the Northport Stop&Shop and I also help him out a lot or a least most of the time when I work there. I also help him while I am shopping since he will be in that spot where I need to be anyway.
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