Retail Inventory Management Services Through Personal Mobile Devices

• US 20140344116A1
• Filed: 05/16/2013
• Published: 11/20/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Walmart Apollo, LLC (WalMart Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Wal Mart Stores Inc (WalMart Inc.)
• Inventors: Santavicca, Aaron, Ouyang, Jie, Paracha, Zulfiqar Ali, Osmon, Josh, Reece, Doyle, Konate, Kishore Kumar, Chandrasiri, Vidanage Prabuddha Mangala, Thangaraj, Mahesh Sundar, Hill, Kevin E., McGuire, Michael Shawn
• Granted Patent: US 9,830,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/28
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

A system is disclosed for providing retailer controllable access to consolidated inventory management services through a retail worker'"'"'s personal smartphone. The system—operable largely within and through the retailer'"'"'s private computing network—comprises data nodes, an enterprise service bus, and a device application. Inventory-related data is kept in the data nodes, with access thereto from suitably provisioned personal mobile devices moderated by the enterprise service bus pursuant to policies and parameters defined by the retailer. Provisioning the personal mobile device involves installation thereon of the device application. The device application launches a user interface for accessing the data nodes through the enterprise service bus, thus enabling the use on the worker'"'"'s personal mobile device of retailer-specific, job-related inventory management tools.

Claims

1. A system providing access to consolidated inventory management services through a personal mobile device, the system comprising:

a plurality of data nodes, each data node hosting inventory-related data, each capable of providing a filtered set of its inventory-related data in response to an authenticated service request;

an enterprise service bus capable of receiving a service request from said personal mobile device, authenticating the service request, and providing the authenticated service request to a pre-determined one or more of said data nodes, the enterprise service bus further capable of acquiring said filtered set of inventory-related data and providing it to said personal mobile device; and

a device application installed on the personal mobile device, wherein the device application is hosted on a native operating system of the personal mobile device and is executable by a user to provide a user interface for (a) sending said service request to the enterprise service bus and (b) presenting the filtered set of inventory-related data sent back through said enterprise service bus to said device in response to said service request.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the device application is wrapped in a device-agnostic container installed on the native operating system of the personal mobile device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein:

said personal mobile device is a smartphone with an integrated digital camera, and

said device application is a smartphone app capable of using said integrated digital camera as an optical bar code scanner.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the smartphone app is an internet app capable of communicating with said enterprise service bus through secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS).

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said enterprise service bus comprises:

an external service bus component executing outside an internal firewall of a retailer-operated computing network; and

an internal service bus component executing inside said internal firewall.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the inventory-related data in each of said data nodes is supported through programming providing

a data access layer for managing access to said inventory-related data;

a business logic/library layer containing business logic and libraries used for processing and maintaining integrity of said inventory-related data; and

a service bus layer exposing, in association with said data access layer and said business logic/library layer, predefined selections of said business logic and libraries to said enterprise service bus.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein said enterprise service bus comprises:

an external service bus component executing outside an internal firewall of retailer-operated computing network; and

an internal service bus component executing inside said internal firewall.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the service bus layer exposes said predefined selections of said business logic and libraries to the external service bus component of said enterprise service bus.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein said external service bus component performs an authentication procedure to authenticate a device application originating a service request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein said authentication procedure calls and relies upon extrinsic third party information.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein:

said personal mobile device is a smartphone with an integrated digital camera, and

said device application is a smartphone app capable of using said integrated digital camera as an optical bar code scanner.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the smartphone app is an internet app capable of communicating with said enterprise service bus through secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS).

13. The system of claim 3, wherein said device application is capable of sending a plurality of predefined inventory-related service requests to said enterprise service bus, said plurality including:

(a) a merchandise-related service request; and

(b) a pick-related service request.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein said plurality of predefined inventory-related service requests further includes:

(c) a worker-related service request; and

(d) a print-related service request.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein said device application is capable of sending a plurality of predefined inventory-related service requests to said enterprise service bus, said plurality including:

(a) a merchandise-related service request; and

(b) a pick-related service request.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein said plurality of predefined inventory-related service requests further includes:

(c) a worker-related service request; and

(d) a print-related service request.