System, method and article of manufacture to optimize inventory and inventory investment utilization in a collaborative context
First Claim
1. A collaborative inventory optimization method to enable a user to select products for either an investment or a space, said method comprising:
- determining at least one optimization analysis objective;
communicating operationally dependent information about various products and importing said operationally dependent information to an inventory database;
identifying a subset of data elements within said database upon which to perform an optimization analysis and communicating said subset of data elements to an optimizing computer;
performing an optimization analysis upon said subset of data elements using said computer to thereby obtain an unconstrained report and/or a constrained report; and
, providing said reports to the user to enable the user to select products for either the investment or the space.
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Abstract
The present invention optimizes inventory and inventory investment utilization based upon inventory holding cost and lost sales, economic profit, unit sales, sales revenue, or gross margin with or without considering investment constraints. The invention assimilates relevant data for each particular item to be evaluated. The data to be collected include store-level point-of-sale data, frequency of replenishment, lead time, investment available, number of units per order lot, cost to the retailer of one unit of SKU, price retailer receives for one unit of SKU, the inventory holding cost factor, and the unit cost of a lost sale. The system evaluates these variables when determining the optimal solution for an unconstrained or constrained investment. The invention also includes a process through which multiple parties can collaborate on the solution. The participants can adjust the permissioned data, optimization parameters, and constraints to reoptimize to meet their objectives.
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Citations
32 Claims
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1. A collaborative inventory optimization method to enable a user to select products for either an investment or a space, said method comprising:
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determining at least one optimization analysis objective;
communicating operationally dependent information about various products and importing said operationally dependent information to an inventory database;
identifying a subset of data elements within said database upon which to perform an optimization analysis and communicating said subset of data elements to an optimizing computer;
performing an optimization analysis upon said subset of data elements using said computer to thereby obtain an unconstrained report and/or a constrained report; and
,providing said reports to the user to enable the user to select products for either the investment or the space. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium for collaboratively determining either optimal investment utilization or optimal space utilization comprising:
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a code segment for determining at least one optimization analysis objective;
a code segment for communicating operationally dependent information about various products and for importing said operationally dependent information to an inventory database;
a code segment for identifying a subset of data elements within said database upon which to perform an optimization and a code segment for communicating said subset of data elements to said optimization;
a code segment for performing said optimization upon said subset of data elements to produce an unconstrained and/or a constrained optimization analysis; and
,means for permitting multiple users to utilize said unconstrained and said constrained analysis to collaboratively select an optimal utilization of either the investment or the space. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A collaborative inventory optimization method to enable a user to select products for an investment, said method comprising:
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determining at least one optimization analysis objective;
communicating operationally dependent information about various products and importing said operationally dependent information to an inventory database;
identifying a subset of data elements within said database upon which to perform an optimization analysis and communicating said subset of data elements to an optimizing computer;
performing an optimization analysis upon said subset of data elements using said computer to thereby obtain an unconstrained report and/or a constrained report; and
,providing said reports to the user to enable the user to select products for the investment. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium for collaboratively determining optimal investment utilization comprising:
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a code segment for determining at least one optimization analysis objective;
a code segment for communicating operationally dependent information about various products and for importing said operationally dependent information to an inventory database;
a code segment for identifying a subset of data elements within said database upon which to perform an optimization and a code segment for communicating said subset of data elements to said optimization;
a code segment for performing said optimization upon said subset of data elements to produce an unconstrained and/or a constrained optimization analysis; and
,means for permitting multiple users to utilize said unconstrained and said constrained analysis to collaboratively select an optimal utilization of the investment. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification