Patent ID: 11957259
Assignee: HATCO CORPORATION
Field: Furniture, games (Other fields)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 0:
1. A cubby unit comprising:
a unit housing having a customer side and an employee side;
a plurality of cubbies disposed within the unit housing, each of the plurality of cubbies including:
a cubby housing having a front side and a rear side, the cubby housing defining an internal compartment between the front side and the rear side;
a customer door coupled to the front side of the cubby housing, the customer door facilitates accessing the internal compartment of the cubby housing from the front side of the cubby housing, at least a portion of the customer door including a transparent panel;
a locking mechanism positioned to selectively lock and unlock the customer door;
a lighting element disposed within the internal compartment; and
an employee door coupled to the rear side of the cubby housing, the employee door facilitates accessing the internal compartment of the cubby housing from the rear side of the cubby housing;

an employee interface positioned along the employee side of the unit housing, wherein the employee interface provides a cubby selection interface that facilitates manual assignment of a respective cubby to a respective order by an employee, the cubby selection interface configured to (i) instruct the employee to place the respective order in the respective cubby manually assigned by the employee and (ii) display a time indicating how long the respective order has been in the respective cubby manually assigned by the employee, and wherein access information associated with the respective order is transmitted to a customer associated with the respective order;
a customer interface positioned along the customer side of the unit housing, wherein the customer interface facilitates entry or acquisition of the access information; and
one or more processing circuits including one or more memory devices coupled to one or more processors, the one or more memory devices storing instructions thereon that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
receive the access information from the customer interface;
determine whether the access information is associated with the respective order within the respective cubby;
disengage the locking mechanism of the respective cubby to unlock the customer door of the respective cubby in response to the access information being associated with the respective order; and
flash the lighting element of the respective cubby in response to the access information being associated with the respective order such that flashing light emitted by the lighting element shines through the transparent panel to indicate in which one of the plurality of cubbies the respective order is located.