Commodity purchasing management system and method

• US 7,401,735 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2005
• Issued: 07/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Takahashi, Naoki, Asai, Takeshi, Morisugi, Toshiya
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim; Ahshik
• Application Number:
  US11/222,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20060080189A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,044 Days
• Field of Search: 235/385, 235/383, 705/22, 705/28
• US Class Current: 235/385
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/203 Inventory monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

An automated commodity customer delivery driven method/system to manage commodity sales by acquiring a chance of purchase of a selecting customer as well as another new customer for a relevant commodity by assuring availability of the inventory for both customers of the relevant commodity. The shop inventory for the selecting customer is acquired according to acceptance of a temporary reservation status for requesting acquisition of the inventory of the selected commodity and the inventory in the shop that was acquired for the selecting customer is returned to the number of inventories for selling to the other new customer, based upon a specified method of transferring the selected commodity to the selecting customer.

Claims

1. A commodity purchasing management system, comprising:

a customer identifying information acquirer acquiring customer identification information identifying a customer;

an inventory storage storing inventory information including a number of inventories of each commodity;

a commodity identifier that identifies a commodity requested by the customer;

a customer commodity transfer specifier specifying a type of a transfer method of the commodity identified by the commodity identifier based upon the request by the customer;

a judger judging whether a number of the inventories of the identified commodity in the inventory storage is assignable to the requesting customer, according to the specifying of the type of the transfer method to transfer the identified commodity to the requesting customer; and

a commodity assigner that assigns the number of the inventories of the identified commodity in the inventory storage to the requesting customer, when the number of the inventories of the identified commodity in the inventory storage is assignable according to a result of the judging.

2. The commodity purchasing management system according to claim 1,

wherein the inventory information further includes a number of inventories already reserved in other transaction for each commodity as reserved inventories, and

wherein the judger judges whether the number of the inventories of the identified commodity in the inventory storage is assignable to the requesting customer, based upon the type of the commodity transfer method obtained from the customer commodity transfer specifier and the inventory information including the number of reserved inventories of the identified commodity.

3. The commodity purchasing management system according to claim 1, wherein the inventory information stored in the inventory storage for the commodity identified with the commodity identifier is exclusively updated based upon the type of the commodity transfer method and based upon updating of the number of the inventories of the identified commodity.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the judger judges that the number of the inventories of the identified commodity is assignable to the customer, when the type of the commodity transfer method is set as “

take-out.”

5. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a quasi-inventory storage stores a date of next commodity supplement to supplement the number of inventories of each commodity and the number of commodities to be supplemented,

wherein the judger judges that the number of inventories of the identified commodity is assignable to the customer, when the type of the commodity transfer method is not set as “

take-out” and

assignment to the customer from the number of commodities to be supplemented by the next and subsequent commodity supplement is impossible.

6. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a quasi-inventory storage storing a date of next commodity supplement to supplement the number of inventories of each commodity and the number of commodities to be supplemented,

wherein the judger judges that assigning the number of the inventories of the identified commodity to the customer is omissible, when the type of the customer commodity transfer method is not set as “

take-out” and

the assignment to the customer from the number of commodities of the next and subsequent commodity supplements is possible, and cancels the assignment of the inventories of the identified commodity to the customer, if according to the judging the assigning is omissible.

7. The commodity purchasing management system according to claim 6, wherein the information stored in the inventory storage and the quasi-inventory storage for the commodity identified with the commodity identifier is exclusively updated based upon the type of the commodity transfer method and based upon updating of the assigned commodities of the quasi-inventory storage.

8. The system according to claim 6, further comprising a quasi-inventory assigning unit that assigns to the customer the number of the next supplement commodities stored in the quasi-inventory storage.

9. A method of managing commodity purchasing, comprising:

acquiring customer identification information identifying a customer;

storing inventory information including a number of inventories for each commodity;

identifying a commodity requested by a customer;

specifying a type of a transfer method to the customer of the identified commodity requested by the customer, as a type of a commodity transfer method;

judging whether a number of inventories of the identified commodity is assignable to the requesting customer according to the specified type of commodity transfer method for the identified commodity by the requesting customer; and

assigning to the customer the number of the inventories of the identified commodity, when the number of the inventories of the identified commodity is assignable according to the judging.

10. The commodity purchasing management method according to claim 9, further comprising storing as the inventory information a number of inventories already reserved in other transaction for each commodity as reserved inventories;

wherein the judging judges whether the number of the inventories of the identified commodity is assignable based upon the type of the commodity transfer method and the inventory information including the number of reserved inventories of the identified commodity.

11. The commodity purchasing management method according to claim 9, further comprising:

updating the inventory information for the commodity identified in the commodity identifying exclusively based upon the specified type of the commodity transfer method and based upon updating of the number of the inventories of the identified commodity.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the judging judges that the number of the inventories of the identified commodity is assignable to the customer, when the type of the commodity transfer method is set as “

take-out.”

13. The method according to claim 9, further comprising storing as quasi-inventory information a date of next commodity supplement to supplement the number of inventories of each commodity and the number of commodities to be supplemented,

wherein the judging judges that the number of inventories of the identified commodity is assignable to the customer, when the type of the commodity transfer method is not set as “

take-out” and

assignment to the customer from the number of commodities to be supplemented by the next and subsequent commodity supplement is impossible.

14. The method according to claim 9, further comprising storing as quasi-inventory information a date of next commodity supplement to supplement the number of inventories of each commodity and the number of commodities to be supplemented,

wherein the judging judges that assigning the number of the inventories of the identified commodity to the customer is omissible, when the type of the customer commodity transfer method is not set as “

take-out” and

the assignment to the customer from the number of commodities of the next and subsequent commodity supplements is possible, and cancels the assignment of the inventories of the identified commodity to the customer, if according to the judging the assigning is omissible.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising assigning to the customer the number of the next supplement commodities from the quasi-inventory information.

16. The commodity purchasing management method according to claim 14, further comprising:

updating the inventory information and the quasi-inventory information for the commodity identified in the commodity identifying exclusively based upon the specified type of the commodity transfer method and based upon updating of the assigned quasi-inventory commodities.

17. An apparatus, comprising:

a database storage storing a number of inventories and quasi-inventories for each store commodity;

a customer identifier acquiring customer identification information identifying a customer;

a commodity identifier that identifies a commodity selected by the identified customer according to commodity identification information; and

a programmed computer processor controlling the apparatus according to a process comprising;

specifying by the identified customer a method of transferring the selected commodity to the identified customer, according to the identified commodity;

judging, according to the specified method of transferring the selected commodity to the identified customer, whether a number of inventories of the selected commodity and/or a number of quasi-inventories of the selected commodity in the inventory storage is assignable to the identified customer; and

assigning to the identified customer the number of inventories of the selected commodity and/or the number of quasi-inventories of the selected commodity in the inventory storage, according to the judging.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the customer identifier is an integrated circuit type card storing customer transaction information comprising the customer identification information and readable by the apparatus.

19. The apparatus of claim 17,

wherein the commodity identifier is a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) information tag that stores the commodity identification information that identifies the commodity selected by the customer, and

wherein the customer identifier is a mobile information terminal having an RFID reader to read the RFID information tag, the mobile information terminal transmitting customer transaction information comprising the customer identification information and the commodity identification information read from the REID information tag to the apparatus.