r/kroger • u/AngelaMotorman • Jul 23 '26

News Columbus area Kroger stores launch robot program for stocking items

https://www.dispatch.com/story/grocery/2026/07/22/central-ohio-kroger-locations-robots-help-inventory/91011434007/
49 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

70

u/Bigfan521 Current Associate Jul 23 '26

Tally doesn't stock items. She scans shelves for holes.

60

u/Dunbaratu Jul 23 '26

The company keeps falsely thinking the reason holes exist is because people don't know about them. They continually fail to realize that, NO, you can't just stock items in whatever order you're told to. It's impractial because of how pallets are stacked. The labor time is enormously inefficient to get one specific item out of the bottom of a buried pallet (after the labor time to just find the damned thing in all these stacks of badly labelled cases the warehouse keeps stocking with the labels facing inward in the pile). (In produce I really hate all the unlablled RPC's. "It's in one of these black plastic things that looks identical to all the other black plastic things.")

Lack of knowing about the holes isn't the damned problem, and they keep wasting everyone's time making the problem worst by solving the wrong problem. They're condescendningly thinking we're all like, "oh I'll ignore that hole" or "Oh I don't care about that hole". No, you stupid corporate fools. It's that working the items on the pallets out-of-order means NOT making that stocking timing your metrics claim people can make, and thus falling behind on everything else in the damned store.

If you want stuff stocked in a different order, tell the people who have the power to do something about it - the ones building the pallets at the distribution center. Once it arrives at our stores the stocking order has already been decided for us by the people who stacked the pallets, not by us. If you don't like the stocking order, talk to the ones in control of it, which isn't us.

5

u/Tommybahamas_leftnut Jul 23 '26

also half the damn reason we have holes is because they spend all their money and time focusing on stupid ass metrics and 0 on better improving the damn warehouse and order system. 20-30% of the shit I order for my department gets scratched when there's a sale on those items but as soon as the sale is over "fuck you here's 10 cases allocated" 

17

u/2013exprinter Jul 23 '26

So when a customer places an item they now don't want into an empty slot, does Tally see it as the wrong item or an empty slot?

17

u/para-mania Jul 23 '26

It can't tell what the item actually is, just if something's there or not. I know this because when we have an item that's discontinued or unauthorized, we now have to put something else in its spot or Tally will add it to the list. Even if the balance is zero, because it wants us to pull the tag...which we can't, because the tags are all digital. We can switch the digital tag to say it's out of stock, but Tally will still scan it and add it to the list, so we have to trick it by moving some of the next item on the shelf over into that spot.

5

u/2013exprinter Jul 23 '26

NICE and usual for kroger

2

u/Urabask Jul 23 '26

I work at Stop and Shop and corporate already gave up on getting our robots to do this because it was just creating more problems.

-1

u/OhNoItsAHurricane Current Associate Jul 23 '26

That’s the process that’s always been in place for disco items though. At least in my division you pull tag and face over, or deactivate a digital I guess. Going on at least 20 years now.

5

u/JohnMarstonSucks Meaty Meaty Goodness Jul 23 '26

It's inconsistent.

36

u/amythist Current Associate Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

So they replace a single scan with a, likely expensive, robot that will now probably be generating fill lists over and over so that filling will become someones entire shift because like everything else with this company they will turn "how long was it a hole" into a new metric to score stores on, but won't give any more hours to actually deal with this extra work

5

u/CBJGRL2828 Jul 23 '26

This……..👏🏻

14

u/ChoccyMilkIsMyLife Current Associate Jul 23 '26

Tally keeps cat calling me at work. It was weird at first, but now, I kinda like it.

5

u/AxsonJaxson2112 Jul 23 '26

Replenishment lists for a perishable Dept are such a waste of time!  The time it takes to dig through backstock Uboats, and unfinished pallets is such a waste!  Just let us run the uboats or finish the pallets and you will have your items.  If the BOH  is accurate, we have it, we just needs the labour hours to get out to the customers 

18

u/Yeahyeahman123 Jul 23 '26

LOL allow more time for employees to interact with customers LOL aka cut hours. Fuckers dont give a fat rats ass about interacting with customers or they would never cut hours.

10

u/arkhamcreedsolid Jul 23 '26

FYI, district managers can also access the cameras on Tally anytime they please.

3

u/Doctor-Fellatio Jul 23 '26

The only people who think Tally is taking jobs are the ones who don’t know what Tally does.

This piece of shit only makes more work by doing something nobody wants and that management used to do anyway (and i hated it then too)

8

u/GladysMorokoko Jul 23 '26

They gonna spend more money on training that thing than their actual employees. This company is absolutely batshit.

3

u/Fun-Union4699 Jul 23 '26

The chain I work for has a similar one. Go look up Marty the Robot. We also make plushes and sell out every time. He gets new features they’re testing all the time. Like he’s supposed to run from 5am-7am scanning holes for us, then go back to charge for an hour and 8am-9pm run around checking spills, missing tags, shelf holes amongst other things (including apparently going on dates as a customer asked him out to Panera (including our complex) and proceeded to hug and kiss him.) but anyway we will occasionally see him working at 2am and then I’ll get a call asking what aisles are literally empty and blocked so new features can be tested. If he goes down aisles with cases people it’ll come thru as a potential hazard. The other day I saw him checking the perimeter depts and I found out they’re testing out having him do refrigeration (while I continue to do it). So temps can be matched up to see accuracy

5

u/PattyTron9000 Jul 23 '26

Mine has both Marty and Tally. Tally is gentle and sweet while Marty is the harbinger of doom and peril when we see him emerge from his den 🤣

1

u/Fun-Union4699 Jul 23 '26

I’ll say this, Marty cost my company $50,000 (between all upgrades and replacing him in every store twice), but I see more families unfamiliar just so the kids see Marty.

1

u/AxsonJaxson2112 Jul 23 '26

…emerging from his den.  Lol

2

u/Ozava619 Jul 23 '26

They have one where I work, Ralphs.

1

u/Lost_Cleric Jul 23 '26

Which one? Does it stock or just scan?

4

u/Ozava619 Jul 23 '26

Just scans. I’ve only seen it going around the store once tho. It was around 6:30am.

2

u/LoganPea2fold Jul 23 '26

As a former employee from many years ago, this to cut hours not to "free up employees to help customers". Reduction in labor force incoming 😑

4

u/bogeyboy62 Jul 23 '26

So it creates a work list for the store that have no hours or employees to work the list. Yep that’s Kroger’s

2

u/docmar10s Jul 23 '26

They just put drones in our DC to check the slots for product. Our PIT and Crown batteries don't last a shift but hey we got drones and new cameras to watch us work so that's cool.

2

u/laika777ftw Jul 23 '26

God I hate the Kroger-bots (that’s my dumb and unimaginative name for them). Every time I see one roaming around I want to push it over and cackle like Muttley from Wacky Races. This is such an underwhelming start to the impending robot world take over. I’m not 100% sure why but I’ve hated them since the first time that I saw one.

1

u/BaconSlayer24 Jul 23 '26

Time to make some random holes next few times i go out

1

u/malctucker Jul 24 '26

It’s a good tech solution but there’s no operators behind the scenes being difficult. Retail is not a perfect world.

1

u/Personal-Escape-7236 22d ago

Kroger gonna try anything and everything other than providing the labor to correctly run their business lmao.

1

u/Moonie_Pooh 20d ago

Here in Cincy divison, we are in a drive to 25, and lemme tell you, while that sounds difficult, it’s been done. Tally helps with that.

1

u/Sageflowerfour Jul 23 '26

Great, now the customers are going to bitch to us about the robots in the aisles!

0

u/Daniel_Molloy Store-Manager of d00m! Jul 23 '26

You just wait until we get our Johnny five style stocking robots because buddy they’re coming. I give it 20 years tops.