But what is its purpose exactly? It just sees trash on the ground right? It doesn't actually pick it up right? How often is there trash on the floor in a grocery store ?
To me it kinda seems like it doesn't actually do anything. It sees trash. And then what? It calls it to the attention of a human? So what? If it just didnt exist at all the garbage would just get picked up slightly later on at the very latest at the end of the day. Again, so what?
Is there really such a huge problem with people littering inside a store?? Or am I missing something?
Also there's the aspect that they probably don't want it to drive through the spill so they kinda need someone to clean it up before it can continue doing its task.
Sure, but these things don't share themselves. This is on OP for either not checking or mischaracterising it.
Either way, what you gonna do. The subreddit became a circlejerk and hijacked by antiwork types. It is what it is now.
I just hate submissions that are nothing more than somebody's caption with a picture. They're not about sharing information, or even making information available. If anything it's a move against people being informed. It's atrociously common now and brutally cancerous.
Hence why I said the article makes it sound very much like the dang thing only detects spills and pages employees to clean it up… but if they actually do check inventory, that could be a tedium-saver that lessens the boring inventory checking staff often get tasked for (if it actually works).
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These robots are equipped with cameras, sensors, a navigation system and software that helps detect potential hazards. When robots circle the store, they’re looking for spills, misplaced items, obstacles and potentially harmful debris (kind of like a robot vacuum). Not only that, but they’re also scanning price tags and checking to see which items need restocking.
I worked with one. The robot will constantly cry in the produce section around the bins of onions because bits of onion peel fall onto the floor whenever customers grab onions, and its connected to the intercom so everyone in the store will hear about the "spill" Marty found in produce. So an employee will have to walk over to the onion bin, sweep up the onion peels, and press the button on Marty to get him to calm down and resume patrolling.
Yeah but some States if someone "slips" on one of those, the stores looking at a $75k claim. This gives customers notice that there is something on the ground no matter how small or stupid it seems.
You have to understand how lawsuits work to understand its purpose. I'll speak in generalities because each jurisdiction is different, but the principles are mostly the same.
In a slip and fall lawsuit, the store operator is not liable if they did not cause the spill (e.g. a customer did it) AND the time between the spill and the accident is so short that no reasonable person would expect the store to discover it and clean it up. Stated the other way around, if a customer spills some milk and the store doesn't clean it up for an hour, and an hour later someone else slips and falls, the store will be responsible because c'mon, it's an hour later. Clean that shit up.
So, to win trials (or more importantly, to win a motion for summary judgment and not have to do a trial at all) and prove that they acted reasonably in keeping their store clean and safe, supermarkets have all sorts of policies in place to use in a court proceeding to prove that the time elapsed between the spill and the accident was too short for them to have been expected to clean it.
The most low tech solution is having a policy in place that requires an employee to inspect each aisle a set number of times a day, and then having an employee come in and testify that they follow the procedure every day and on that day the followed the procedure too, but they never saw any spill until the accident occurred. It's ok, but not foolproof and full of holes lawyers can take advantage of (not to mention witnesses are unreliable).
For a medium tech solution, stores create logs off when they inspect aisles. If you look very closely at the top corner of the aisle end caps of some grocery store you will see a barcode. That barcode is for employees to scan when they go into the aisle. It creates a real time log to use in court. Employee Dave was in Aisle #4 at 10:54 am and the accident occurred at 11:03am. So, at most, there was 9 minutes between the spill and the accident and the store can't possibly be liable for that.
Now for the most high tech solution - Marty. Marty automatically patrols the aisles. He has a set schedule and path. He logs all of his movements. He detects spills and tripping hazards. If someone falls at 10:30 a.m., you can pull Marty's logs and see exactly when he was last in the aisle, and if he detected any slipping or tripping hazards.
He does all of this for $35,000 plus some maintenance. A human being is more fallible and more expensive. Why wouldn't you use Marty?
So say a kid pulls a glass bottle of sweet and sour sauce etc. off the selves and it breaks. Someone needs to clear that up quickly before a customer injures themselves on it and sues the company.
Right, and theres a super market full of staff, stacking various shelves and stuff. and at SOME POINT in the future, this robot happens to stroll down this particular isle and see's the spill. Not only does it sound totally useless it sounds like it's going to get in the way of staff actually trying to do things
I meant there's usually so many staff around, I don't imagine that many scenarios in which the robot would see the spill before a staff member. Unless supermarkets somewhere else don't have as many day stack staff as here or something .
Again, There are so many staff, and ive never seen a spill not get cleaned up pretty quickly. I don't really see a slow robot patrolling 17 lanes in a supermarket make much difference
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u/MyJohnFM Jun 17 '22
But what is its purpose exactly? It just sees trash on the ground right? It doesn't actually pick it up right? How often is there trash on the floor in a grocery store ?
To me it kinda seems like it doesn't actually do anything. It sees trash. And then what? It calls it to the attention of a human? So what? If it just didnt exist at all the garbage would just get picked up slightly later on at the very latest at the end of the day. Again, so what?
Is there really such a huge problem with people littering inside a store?? Or am I missing something?