Patent ID: 11868960
Assignee: WALMART APOLLO, LLC
Field: IT methods for management (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 8:
9. A method, the method comprising:
providing a retail store, the retail store including product display units and a back room, wherein the back room is disposed within the store and structured so as to not be accessible to the public;
wherein the product display units are configured to present products to customers;
by customers, purchasing and removing the products from the product display units, and delivering the products to the back room by a shipper, and wherein perpetual inventory (PI) values for each of the products are adjusted as the products are purchased and removed, or when the products are delivered;
receiving at a central processing center and from the retail store scans of the back room made by one or more first sensors in the back room, the one or more first sensors deployed on an automated device or fixed in location within the backroom;
receiving adjusted PI values for a selected product from other retail stores;
storing at a database at the central processing center the scans, a selected perpetual inventory (PI) value from the PI values for the selected product, a last PI adjustment time when the selected PI value was last adjusted by the retail store, and a product display capacity value, the product display capacity value being an amount of the selected product capable of being stored at a selected one of the product display units;
obtaining the PI value, the scans, and the product display capacity value from the database;
performing an analysis of the scans to determine whether the selected item was moved from the back room to the selected product display unit, then returned from the selected product display unit, the analysis also determining a re-bin time when the selected product was returned to the back room;
blocking an adjustment to the selected PI value when last PI adjustment time is later than the re-bin time;
blocking an adjustment to the selected PI value when an audit indicator is received at the interface indicating that the retail store is under an audit;
determining an adjusted PI value when the analysis indicates that the selected item was moved from the back room to the selected product display unit, then returned from the selected product display unit, the adjusted PI value being at least one more than the product display capacity value, the adjusted PI value also being based at least in part upon adjusted PI values for the selected product that have been received from the other retail stores via the network.