Inventory management of products
First Claim
1. A system for managing staged material in a processing facility, the system scanning material entering and exiting the system, comprising:
- an inventory database containing data structures to record the material entering and exiting a staging area of the processing facility and to record location assignment data of the material; and
a staging area controller which accesses the inventory database for tracking and managing the material entering and exiting the staging area of the processing facility, wherein a substantially accurate inventory of staged material is maintained by the system.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Inventory management of work-in-process (WIP) inventory within a processing facility is accomplished with a staged holding area in concert with control systems. Receiving of material into the staging area is tracked by scanning mechanisms such as Radio Frequency ID (RFID) or bar coding methods. Aggregation of material is recorded by cart sizing factors into the automatic control system. Carts are stored temporarily in locations arranged in a pre-determined grid fashion. The grid location information for a cart is made known to the automatic control system for reference or reporting to production supervisors. Down-stream processing can request staged inventory material from staging operators via overhead message boards or computer screens. Requests may be by particular types of material or by specific cart grid location. Manual entry or manual release of material is also accommodated including manual corrections of staged materials. Release of entire cart contents to down-stream processing is converted to actual material counts
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. A system for managing staged material in a processing facility, the system scanning material entering and exiting the system, comprising:
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an inventory database containing data structures to record the material entering and exiting a staging area of the processing facility and to record location assignment data of the material; and
a staging area controller which accesses the inventory database for tracking and managing the material entering and exiting the staging area of the processing facility, wherein a substantially accurate inventory of staged material is maintained by the system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for managing material entering and exiting a staging area in a processing facility and for storing the material in a storage area, the method comprising the steps of:
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sorting the material by material ID as it enters the staging area;
recording the material entering and exiting the staging area in a database via the material ID;
recording location assignment data of the material in the staging area in the database; and
tracking and managing the material entering and exiting the staging area by accessing the recorded information in the database. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21)
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19. A method for managing material entering and exiting a staging area in a processing facility wherein the staged material is stored in a bulk-grid storage location, the method comprising the steps of:
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displaying an operational demand on a message board display;
entering the, material onto an automation equipment conveyor;
scanning the material entered onto the automation equipment conveyor;
decrementing a current container counter in a database to reflect the count of the material in a container;
checking whether the current container counter has reached a limit;
decrementing a container inventory in the database to reflect the count of containers if the limit has been reached. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification