Abstract:
An apparatus for verifying inventory grouping comprises a scanner to scan codes on labels, and a computer having a computer readable storage media storing a computer program product. The product includes instructions for causing the computer to verify that articles in a grouped order belong in the grouped order by examining codes on tags associated with each article in the group to determine that the article belongs in the group. Most dry cleaning establishments have built up over the years efficient ways to manually assemble garment articles into orders. This invention capitalizes on that investment. Rather than throwing away an established manual system to regroup, this invention establishes a verification system that can catch the infrequent but costly regrouping mistakes that occur.

Description:
BACKGROUND  
         [0001]    This invention relates to inventory systems particularly adapted for dry cleaning establishments.  
           [0002]    Manual assembly or grouping techniques are used to assemble groups of orders for dry cleaning establishments. In the typical manual method a worker examines a tag on a garment and manually places it on an assigned hook in an assembly station. The establishment can have an assembly station with a certain number of hooks. The worker matches a number on the tag or invoice to one of the hooks that was assigned to the number. Thus if a garment has a tag with number “185” the worker will place the garment on the hook that was assigned to number “185.” 
           [0003]    Automated systems to assemble or group pieces of an order are known. These assembly systems have an arrangement of pairs of lights. Typically, one light of the pair indicates what group to place an article in whereas, the other light indicates when the group has been completed. In such systems each pair of lights are associated with corresponding one of a plurality of assemble stations or hooks used to hold the garments during a grouping operation. A bar code reader is coupled to a computer system that controls the lights. In operation a batch of cleaning may involve a number of orders. The system is designed such that invoices and associated tags are coded e.g., by bar codes to the orders. Each one the lights is assigned to a group, and as the tag is scanned a light will go on to indicate the rack on which to place the garment. Thus, if the system has thirty pairs of lights and associated assemble hooks it can process for grouping thirty orders. In general the system needs one light pair for each order.  
         SUMMARY  
         [0004]    Rather than using an expensive apparatus to regroup items this invention is directed to an apparatus and method to verify that grouping was done correctly, whether grouping was done manually or by an automated process. A large dry cleaning operation may have several people doing assembly. An automated grouping system could provide improvements in speed and accuracy and save on needed labor. For most dry cleaning operations this is not a great advantage. Most dry cleaning establishments are small having one or at most two people doing assembly. Therefore, the typical dry cleaner has would not save on labor with an automated grouping system.  
           [0005]    According to an aspect of the present invention, a method of inventory management comprises verifying that the articles in a grouped order belong to the grouped order, wherein verifying includes examining codes on tags associated with each article in the group to determine that the article belongs in the group.  
           [0006]    According to a further aspect of the present invention, a computer program product resides on a computer readable media. The product is for use in a dry cleaning establishment and comprises instructions for causing a computer to verify that articles in a grouped order belong in the grouped order by examining codes on tags associated with each article in the group to determine that the article belongs in the group.  
           [0007]    According to an additional aspect of the invention, an apparatus for verifying inventory grouping comprises a scanner to scan codes on labels, and a computer having a computer readable storage media storing a computer program product comprises instructions for causing the computer to verify that articles in a grouped order belong in the grouped order, wherein instructions to verify further comprise instructions to examine codes on tags associated with each article in the group to determine that the article belongs in the group.  
           [0008]    One or more of the following advantage may be provided by one or more aspects of the present invention.  
           [0009]    Most dry cleaning establishments have built up over the years efficient ways to manually assemble garment articles into orders. There are many ways to manually assemble. Small dry cleaners in particular have made a substantial investment in the manual systems that they use. This invention capitalizes on that investment. Rather than throwing away an established manual system to regroup, this invention establishes a verification system that can catch the infrequent but costly regrouping mistakes that occur. Although of particular advantage with manual systems, especially for operations of the size that can not take advantage of any savings in labor in the automated system, it would also be useful for automated systems. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0010]    [0010]FIG. 1 is a diagrammatical view of a dry cleaning establishment including a item grouping verification system.  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the verification system used in FIG. 1.  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 3 is a diagrammatical view of a garment tag having a unique identification imprinted as a bar code and alphanumeric.  
         [0013]    FIGS.  4 A- 4 C are flow charts of a verification process used in the verification system of FIG. 2. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION  
       [0014]    Referring to FIG. 1, a dry cleaning establishment  10  includes a front counter  11  where garments for cleaning are given to the establishment and the customer receives an invoice or claim ticket. The establishment  10  also includes a tagging station  12  where tags that are used to track the garment are produced and placed on the garments. The tagging station  12  includes a control device such as a computer system  12   a  for entering information concerning a transaction. The information that can be entered includes identification information that identifies the customer associated with the transaction, as well as information concerning the nature of the transaction. For example, information includes the number of pieces or articles that make up the transaction and which will be grouped together at the end of a cleaning process. Optionally, the information could also include short descriptions for the articles.  
         [0015]    The tagging station  12  also includes a printer  12   b  to optionally print a transaction receipt, and to print tags on demand that will be affixed to the articles. The printer can be a dot matrix, thermal transfer, ink-jet, or laser type printer. The tags include unique sequential indicia that include a group id associated with the transaction or customer, and a unique sequence number. The establishment  10  also includes a cleaning station  14  which may be local to the establishment  10 , or an offsite central location that receives batches of garments for cleaning from drop stores.  
         [0016]    The dry cleaning establishment  10  also includes a grouping station  16  and a bagging station  18 . Often cleaning is actually performed in lots or batches that may include several different groups or customer orders. The bagging station  18  based on the productivity of the establishment can either be part of the grouping station  16  or separate from the grouping station  16 . The bagging station  18  includes a verification system  20 . The verification system  20  could alternatively be located at the front counter  11  to be implemented at payment or where the dry cleaning establishment  10  has a final check that the initial sorting was done properly. The tags can either be left on the garments or they can be removed and attached to an invoice.  
         [0017]    At the grouping station  16 , the dry cleaning establishment  10  can manually assemble an order or can use one of the automated systems. At the bagging station  18 , a bag e.g., a plastic bag, is placed over the clothes. At this point, the dry cleaning establishment  10  considers that the customer&#39;s order has been assembled and all the items in the group belong to that customer. Racked means that it is ready for pick-up on a conveyor or a slick rail where a customer can walk into the store and request that a clerk give him the order.  
         [0018]    Referring now to FIG. 2, the verification system  20  includes a scanner  22 . The scanner  22  could be a bar code scanner, having a wand or the like, (not shown) a radio frequency tag identifier scanner, a touch memory type of scanner, or optical character recognition (OCR) device. The scanner  22  reads the code on the tag. The code can be anything that would be machine readable such as bar codes, touch memory devices, or radio frequency type devices or maybe an optical character recognition (OCR) code format. The scanner  22  is used to read a garment tag  23 . The garment tag  23  (further described in FIG. 3) could be a permanent label, a put on/take off reusable label or it could be a one-time use paper label.  
         [0019]    The verification system  20  operates on an order which was assembled either by an automated system or in most cases, manually assembled. The verification system  20  also includes a computer system  24  having a display device  26  and hard disk storage  28 . The computer system  24  would also include a memory and input/output interfaces (not shown). The computer system  24  receives data from the scanner  22  and executes a verification process  40  (described in FIG. 3) stored as a computer program on the storage device or which could also be implemented as a firmware process in a specialized controller. The computer system also produces signals that control a display indicator such as the display  26  or a light indicator system  30 .  
         [0020]    The verification system  20  is used to verify that the grouping i.e., manual or automated assembly, was correct. The verification system  20  includes an indication device such as a display  26  and/or the light indicator system  30 . Alternatively, an audio system (not shown) could be used. The indication device, e.g., the light indicator system  30  is used to indicate that the order is correctly grouped or that one or more pieces in the order are missing or were incorrectly grouped into the order.  
         [0021]    The light indicator system  30  includes two different indicators  30   a  and  30   b , each preferably being a different color. One indicator  30   a  is used to indicate that articles are properly in the order and the other  30   b  is used to indicate a misplaced article or incorrect article in the order. To start the process an operator would scan either one of the garment tags  23  or the invoice itself, both having some machine readable code. The light indicator system can be disposed on or adjacent to a slick rail  32  that holds grouped items such as garments.  
         [0022]    If the scan starts with the information on the garment tag  23  the computer can assess a database to determine identification information regarding the order. If the invoice is scanned the invoice can identify the order. In some instances the invoice might not be present when the scan in the verification system  20  is made particularly where dry cleaning is done at a main plant and orders are delivered to satellite or drop stores where the invoice might be kept. Thus, at the main plant the invoice might not be available to match up with the order, but the garment tags  23  are available. By a drop store is meant a store that accepts orders but contracts with or is associated with a centralized dry cleaning facility that actually does the dry cleaning for many store outlets. Thus, the garments may be assembled and verified at the main plant. The main plant would send finished and assembled orders back to the drop stores. Alternatively, ungrouped articles in batches of garments from many different orders (groups) could be sent back to the drop stores for manual grouping and verification.  
         [0023]    Referring now to FIG. 3, the verification system  20  can use any type of code. One type of code that would be preferred is a code that includes information about the invoice, number of articles in an order, and uniquely identifies each article in the order. As shown in FIG. 3, the garment tag  23  has a code that includes a group_ID  23   a , a sequence_ID  23   b  and a machine readable bar code  23   c  that encodes both the group_ID  23   a  and the sequence_ID  23   b . The illustrated bar code is diagrammatic only. As drawn it is not intended to actually correspond to the alpha-numeric provide thereunder. However is an actual system the bar code would correspond to the encoded alpha-numeric in a machine readable format.  
         [0024]    This code obviates the need to access a database for each item since it includes a unique_ID for each item and the total number of items in the group. The code includes the group_ID number  23   a  e.g., “X1234” to which is concatenated the sequence_ID  23   b  “55.” The sequence_ID  23   b  for the first article is an encoded sequence that encodes the number of articles in the group. The encoded sequence  23   b  is a number that is the total number of pieces in the order plus “50.” If the order has five pieces, the first piece number is  55 , as shown. The unique_ID would be “X1234 55.” Subsequent tags belonging to that order would have unique numbers “X1234 02”, “X1234 03”, and so forth as shown. However, other coding schemes with minor modifications to the process  40  (FIGS.  4 A- 4 C) could be used.  
         [0025]    This verification system  20  allows verification of orders up to 50 pieces. If the sequence number is greater than 50, it indicates that the tag corresponds to the first piece in the order. When 50 is subtracted from the last two digits, the answer is the number of pieces in the order. Thus for an order of one piece, the number would be  51 , for five pieces, the number would be  55 , and so forth. By scanning the unique_ID verification is performed without the need to access the database or have a database anywhere local to the garment. By using this arrangement it obviates the need to look up in a database to find the number of items in an order. This provides a stand alone verification capability and allows operation from the information on the garment tag  23  or invoice for verification.  
         [0026]    Referring now to FIG. 4A, the verification process  40  starts by an operator scanning  42  an invoice ticket or a garment tag  23 . The verification process  40  receives and stores  44  the group_ID and encoded sequence number from the garment tag  23  or ticket that was scanned. The verification system  20  could cause the yellow light to turn on  46  indicating that verification of an order is in process.  
         [0027]    Referring to FIGS.  4 B- 4 C, the operator can scan  52  a tag on a second garment. The process  40  will examine  54  the group_ID on the second tag and if the second garment belongs in the group, i.e., the group numbers are the same, and was not previously scanned  56  it will determine  58  if it is the first article in the group. If it is the first article in the group the process  40  will determine  60  the number of articles in the group. If it is not the first article, the process  40  stores  62  the group_ID and encoded sequence number from the garment tag  23  or ticket that was scanned. The verification system  20  could cause the yellow light to remain on  64  indicating that verification is still in process and that the garment tag belonged in the group. If the process  50  determines  66  that the first article was previously scanned it will determine  68  the scanned article count and determine  70  if it is the last article. If it is the last article it will turn off  72  light  30   a  indicating that the verification process is complete. If it was not the last article it will return to  52  to await the scanning of the next article.  
         [0028]    If the process  50  determines  54  that the same item was scanned twice, e.g., through operator fault, (the operator was distracted or left to do something else and came back and did recall whether the item had been scanned) the process  50  will cause the yellow light  30   b  to flash  80  or another indication could be used to signify that it was a repeat scan. In any event, the verification system  20  would not count the duplicate scanned item as part of the group. This allows the operator to leave the operation. The verification system  20  provides a visual indicator that can be displayed on the computer screen or could produce an audio output to indicate to the operator that the item had already been scanned but that the item is the correct group.  
         [0029]    As mentioned above, if the group is correctly assembled after the last item in the group has been scanned, the yellow light goes out. Turning off of the yellow light indicates that the order is now machine verified and correct. If, during the process  50  it is determined  54  that the tag which was scanned does not belong in the order, the verification system  20  causes  82 , e.g., light  30   b  to flash. Light  30   b  could be a different color, e.g., red.  
         [0030]    With a two light verification system  20  an operator can tell that verification has been started, that the same item was scanned multiple times, and that the order is correctly or incorrectly grouped together. These features of the verification system  20  allows an operator to pause a verification operation and resume the verification operation at a later time.  
         [0031]    The operator keeps scanning until the grouped order is completed. The verification system  20  stores each of the unique_ID&#39;s scanned. The verification system  20  seeks to find  58  the piece having a number that is greater than fifty, i.e., the first piece. Until the verification system  20  finds the first piece, and decodes the encoded ID, it will not know how many pieces are in the order.  
         [0032]    Once the process  50  finds the piece with the number greater than fifty, the process  50  takes that number and converts it into the number of pieces in the order by subtracting fifty from the number. Thus using a two digit sequence number the maximum number of items that can be tracked is 50. However, larger digit sequence numbers could be used, e.g., three digits in which case 500 articles could be tracked and so forth.  
         [0033]    The verification system  20  could also include a monitor  26  (FIG. 1) that produces a screen display. The computer screen could display a current status. The display could give a listing of all of the pieces that were scanned, and once the first piece, e.g., the piece with the encoded sequence ID, was scanned the verification system  20  could tell how many articles are left and how many unique pieces are left to scan.  
         [0034]    In one operating scenario, the operator could use a wireless scanner and move around the dry cleaning establishment  10  verifying grouped orders. Thus, with the wireless scanner the verification system  20  could scan all of the garment tags  23  that are attached to an order or the clothes could be brought to a standard scanner and the garment tags  23  could be scanned there.  
         [0035]    The verification process  40  can take place either at the time of bagging or at racking. Since the process  40  operates on grouped orders, if performed at the bagging station  18  it is used as a final check. If the garment tags  23  have been removed from the garments and are stapled to the invoice, which a number of dry cleaning establishments do, prior to putting the assembled order together and placing it on a conveyor, the order could be verified by scanning the garment tags  23 . Once the order is on conveyor, after verification it can be assumed that the order is correct.  
         [0036]    The verification process  40  was described using a temporary, e.g., paper tag with unique sequential identification numbers affixed to garments. However, with minor modifications, the verification process  40  could be adapted to work with permanent tags affixed to or within garments. The verification process  40  could be modified. The permanent tags would be initially scanned at order receipt. The numbers on the permanent tags would be associated with a group number and that group number would be printed on temporary tags affixed to the articles or simple printed on an invoice without the temporary tags.  
         [0037]    Alternatively, the numbers from the permanent tags would be associated together in a database with all of the numbers scanned from the permanent tags of a particular order. The number of articles in the group would also be entered at drop off. This information would be stored in a database which could be accessed during the verification process.  
         [0038]    During the verification process, an access to the database would be made in order to retrieve the number of articles in the group. The verification process would be modified to match numbers from the permanent labels on the articles to either the group number or the permanent numbers associated with the permanent tags. The system would continue to count these numbers until it matched the number of articles in the order which was obtained by an access to the database. The verification process would also indicate whether a scanned number did not correspond to the group number or did not correspond to one of the permanent numbers associated with the permanent tags of the order.  
         [0039]    This invention offers value to dry cleaning establishments of all sizes, i.e., large or small. The verification system  20  verifies that the order that was correctly grouped together either through a manual grouping or an automated grouping process. For example, in a manual process it is possible that a person could misplace or mis-group an item in a group and still have the correct number of pieces. Even with an automated grouping process, there is nothing to prevent a person from placing an item of an order at the wrong assembly station. Also, an article could be knocked off an assembly hook, someone picks it up and puts it in the wrong location. There are many ways that the operator of a manual or automated grouping system can make a mistake. Also sometimes, just before bagging, the operator may notice that there is a spot or stain on a garment requiring additional finishing work. The finishing work could take place and the garment may be place on the wrong assembly hook.  
         [0040]    The verification system  20  verifies correct grouping of articles in an order, rather than assembling articles into a group. Thus, this verification system  20  can prevent the occasional error that occurs. For example with manual assembly, maybe an dry cleaning establishment  10  would have one or two errors a week while process three or four thousand pieces. While the number are errors are small, these errors could be costly to the business because with such an error the business may have alienated a customer and may be liable to replace an expensive article of clothing. With this verification system  20  for a very small amount of time that it takes to verify, the dry cleaning establishment  10  can be confident that everything in that order belongs to that order.  
         [0041]    Other Embodiments  
         [0042]    It is to be understood that while the invention has been described in conjunction with the detailed description thereof, the foregoing description is intended to illustrate and not limit the scope of the invention, which is defined by the scope of the appended claims. Other aspects, advantages, and modifications are within the scope of the following claims.