Patent ID: 11948110
Assignee: nan
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A system for managing performance of a service establishment, the service establishment having a plurality of servers and a plurality of customers therein, each server having a server queue containing zero or more customers, wherein the server takes an order from each customer in the server queue when the customer is at the head of the server queue, the system comprising:
an order input interface for obtaining orders from the servers as the servers take orders from the customers;
one or more digital video cameras positioned and configured to capture video of the server queues;
a public view monitor viewable by the customers;
a management monitor viewable by one or more managers of the service establishment; and
a customer tracking processor comprising an artificial intelligence engine comprising a convolutional neural network trained with thousands of images of human heads taken from multiple views to recognize the heads of the customers, the customer tracking processor being configured to, for each server queue including at least one customer:
receive video data from at least one of the digital video cameras of the server queue;
identify, via the convolutional neural network, the head of each customer in the server queue by analysis of the video data;
track each customer's progress in the server queue by analysis of the video data by repeatedly identifying the customer's head as the customer progresses in the queue;
calculate expected wait time for the server queue;
display the expected wait time on the public view monitor; and, calculate, for each individual customer in one of the server queues, based in the movement of the customer's head while the customer is in the queue, the customer's wait time from the time the customer enters the server queue until the time the server takes the customer's order and enters the order via the order input interface,, wherein the customer tracking processor is further configured to calculate, for each server queue, by analyzing the video data showing the server queue, the number of customers in the server queue, and an average order time for each customer in the server queue who has ordered within a previous predetermined period of time, wherein the order time is the duration between the time the customer reaches the head of the server queue and the time the customer's order is entered into the system, and wherein the expected wait time for a server queue is calculated as the average order time for the server queue multiplied by the number of customers in the server queue and further wherein the customer tracking processor is further configured to display on the public view monitor the number of customers in each server queue.