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

Claim 0:
1. A system, the system comprising:
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;
wherein customers purchase and remove the products from the product display units, and wherein the products are delivered 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;
one or more first sensors disposed in the back room of the retail store, the one or more first sensors configured to obtain scans of the back room, the one or more first sensors deployed on an automated device or fixed in location within the backroom;
a transceiver circuit disposed at the retail store and coupled to the one or more first sensors;
a network electronically coupled to the transceiver circuit;
a plurality of other retail stores that are electronically coupled to the network;
an interface disposed at a central processing center, coupled to the network, and configured to receive from the retail store scans of the back room made by one or more first sensors in the back room, the interface also configured to receive adjusted PI values for a selected product from the other retail stores;
a database disposed at a central processing center and that is configured to store 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, and a product display capacity value, the product display capacity value being an amount of the selected product capable of being stored on the selected product display;
a control circuit disposed at a central processing center and that is coupled to the interface and the database, the control circuit configured to:
obtain the selected PI value, the scans, and the product display capacity value from the database;
perform an analysis of the scans to determine whether the selected item was moved from the back room to the product display unit, then returned from the product display unit, the analysis also determining a re-bin time when the selected product was returned to the back room;
block an adjustment to the selected PI value when last PI adjustment time is later than the re-bin time;
block 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;
determine an adjusted PI value when the analysis indicates that the selected item was moved from the back room to the product display unit, then returned from the product display unit, the adjusted PI value being at least one more than the product display capacity value and based at least in part upon the adjusted PI values of the selected product in the other retail stores that have been received from the other retail stores via the network.