Inventory management system and method thereof

• US 10,460,286 B2
• Filed: 11/13/2015
• Issued: 10/29/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute
• Original Assignee: The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute
• Inventors: Kliper, Roi
• Primary Examiner(s): Danneman, Paul
• Application Number:
  US14/940,396
• Publication Number:
  US 20160140490A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,446 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/202 Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR

Abstract

A method and system for managing inventory of a product in at least one store. The method comprises: determining, for each store, a seed inventory of the product based at least on distribution data for the product; and generating, for each store, an estimated current inventory of the product based on the respective seed inventory and at least one heuristic.

Claims

1. A method for managing inventory of a product in at least one store, wherein the method is performed by an inventory management system with respect to a listing of the product on an electronic commerce (e-commerce) website, comprising:

determining, for each store, a seed inventory of the product based at least on distribution data for the product; and

generating, for each store, an estimated current inventory of the product based on the respective seed inventory and at least one seed inventory heuristic determined based on information maintained by entities other than a vendor of the product; and

causing the display of information regarding the estimated current inventory to a virtual point of sale (POS) on a user device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

computing, for each store, at least one probability that the store has at least one quantity of the product in stock based on the estimated current inventory, wherein each probability corresponds to a quantity of the at least one quantity.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

selecting at least one of the computed probabilities; and

sending the selected at least one computed probability.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one estimated current inventory is selected based on preferences of a consumer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the consumer preferences include any of:

favoring closer stores, and favoring stores that have higher probabilities of having a requested quantity of the product in stock.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

identifying at least one identifier of the product; and

causing a display of the at least one identifier of the product and the estimated current inventory of the product on a user device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one seed inventory heuristic is any of:

a type of the product, a time of day, a sales trend of the product, a pattern of the product, sales of the product by other stores, a sales trend of an associated product related to the product, a promotion, an external event, and a location of the store.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

detecting a purchase transaction by a transacting store of the least one store; and

upon detecting the purchase transaction, generating an updated estimated current inventory for the transacting store based on the estimated current inventory of the transacting store and the purchase transaction.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the distribution data includes a quantity of the product delivered to at least one geographic area.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein each seed inventory is further determined based on relative sizes of stores in each of the at least one geographic area.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein generating an estimated current inventory of the product further comprises:

applying a statistical model to the at least one seed inventory heuristic based on the respective seed inventory.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein each generated estimated current inventory level is further based on a time elapsed since determination of the respective seed inventory.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, for each store, whether the estimated current inventory level is below a threshold; and

upon determining that at least one estimated current inventory level is below a threshold, generating an alert for each store having an estimated current inventory level below the threshold.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the estimation of the current inventory is performed by a system that is not communicatively connected to the store.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the seed inventory of the product is implicitly determined.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating inventory analytics based on the inventory estimated over time.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the inventory analytics include sales trends and sales patterns related to at least one of:

a specific product, a group of products, a specific store, and a group of stores.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the product includes any one of:

goods, and services.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing one or more processing units to execute the method according to claim 1.

20. A system for managing inventory of a product in at least one store with respect to a listing of the product on an electronic commerce (e-commerce) website, comprising:

a processing unit; and

a memory, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, configure the system to;

determine, for each store, a seed inventory of the product based at least on distribution data for the product; and

generate, for each store, an estimated current inventory of the product based on the respective seed inventory and at least one seed inventory heuristic determined based on information maintained by entities other than a vendor of the product; and

causing the display of information regarding the estimated current inventory to a virtual point of sale (POS) on a user device.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the system is further configured to:

compute, for each store, at least one probability that the store has at least one quantity of the product in stock based on the estimated current inventory, wherein each probability corresponds to a quantity of the at least one quantity.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the system is further configured to:

select at least one of the computed probabilities; and

send the selected at least one computed probability.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the at least one estimated current inventory is selected based on preferences of a consumer.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the consumer preferences include any of:

favoring closer stores, and favoring stores that have higher probabilities of having a requested quantity of the product in stock.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the system is further configured to:

identify at least one identifier of the product; and

cause a display of the at least one identifier of the product and the estimated current inventory of the product on a user device.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein each of the at least one seed inventory heuristic is any of:

a type of the product, a time of day, a sales trend of the product, a pattern of the product, sales of the product by other stores, a sales trend of an associated product related to the product, a promotion, an external event, and a location of the store.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the system is further configured to:

detect a purchase transaction by a transacting store of the at least one store; and

upon detecting the purchase transaction, generate an updated estimated current inventory for the transacting store based on the estimated current inventory of the transacting store and the purchase transaction.

28. The system of claim 20, wherein the distribution data includes a quantity of the product delivered to at least one geographic area.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein each seed inventory is further determined based on relative sizes of stores in each of the at least one geographic area.

30. The system of claim 20, wherein the system is further configured to:

apply a statistical model to the at least one seed inventory heuristic based on the respective seed inventory.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein each generated estimated current inventory level is further based on a time elapsed since determination of the respective seed inventory.

32. The system of claim 20, wherein the system is further configured to:

determine, for each store, whether the estimated current inventory level is below a threshold; and

upon determining that at least one estimated current inventory level is below a threshold, generate an alert for each store having an estimated current inventory level below the threshold.

33. The system of claim 20, wherein the estimation of the current inventory is performed by a system that is not communicatively connected to the store.

34. The system of claim 20, wherein the seed inventory of the product is implicitly determined.

35. The system of claim 20, wherein the system is further configured to:

generate inventory analytics based on the inventory estimated over time.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the inventory analytics include sales trends and sales patterns related to at least one of:

a specific product, a group of products, a specific store, and a group of stores.

37. The system of claim 20, wherein the product includes any one of:

goods and services.