Patent ID: 7961104

Claim:
An apparatus for identifying a placement of an item within a storage unit, the apparatus comprising: a user interface; a tag reader; and a controller, wherein the controller further comprises: a bus; a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device contains a computer usable program product; and a processor unit, wherein the processor unit executes the computer usable program product to identify the item to be located, to form an identified item; to determine a shelf position of the identified item on a shelf in a set of shelves in the storage unit, wherein determining the shelf position further comprises receiving a signal from an identification tag associated with the identified item by a set of entry/exit readers coupled to the set of shelves, and determining the shelf position based on the signal from the identification tag, wherein the shelf position is a precise location of the identified item on the shelf in the set of shelves; and to communicate the shelf position of the identified item to a user.