Methods and systems for collaborative demand planning and replenishment

• US 7,848,967 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2007
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jean Young, Richard Young
• Original Assignee: Webconcepts, Inc.
• Inventors: Young, Raymond
• Primary Examiner(s): THEIN, MARIA TERESA T
• Application Number:
  US11/829,779
• Publication Number:
  US 20070260524A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,229 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/28
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0875 Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/203 Inventory monitoring

Abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for generating replenishment orders for products sold to a multi-store retailer. Store trait data is mapped with planogram information and the mapped data is used to generate a fixture level safety stock for a particular product in a particular store. The fixture level safety stock triggers fixture level replenishment orders.

Claims

1. A vendor managed inventory system, comprising:

a remote server in communication over a public packet switched network with a local retailer system, the retailer system storing retail-level planogram information lacking store identification information, customer demographic information, and store trait data representing a configuration of an identified store in terms of the store'"'"'s fixtures referenced by fixture identifiers wherein the remote server is programmed to;

store historical planogram information previously received from the retailer system;

receive the store trait data that includes the fixture identifiers, customer demographic information, a fixture-level perpetual quantity of a product in the identified store, and planogram information for a fixture in real-time via the public packet switched network;

incorporate changes to the fixture'"'"'s planogram in real-time as the changes occur based continuously monitoring the store trait data and the fixture'"'"'s planogram information;

map store trait data with retail-level planogram information to form store-level mapped data by matching fixture identifiers in the store trait data with fixture identifiers in the planogram information;

use the customer demographic information and the store-level mapped data to derive a fixture-level safety stock for a product in the identified store; and

trigger a planogram recommendation and a fixture-level replenishment order for an amount of the product, when the fixture-level perpetual quantity of the product falls below the determined fixture-level safety stock, the planogram recommendation and the amount are calculated based on the store trait data, the fixture-level perpetual quantity, demographic information, the historical planogram information, and the changed planogram of the fixture.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is configured to electronically receive sales performance information via the public packet switched network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein remote server is configured to at least one of store trait data and planogram information.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote server is configured to receive capacity information of the fixture as part of the planogram information.

5. A method to manage an inventory by a provider comprising:

an inventory managing system receiving a retail-level planogram information, lacking store identification information, a customer demographic information, a store trait data representing a configuration of an identified store in terms of the store'"'"'s fixtures referenced by fixture identifiers from the store in real-time, and a fixture-level perpetual quantity of a product in the identified store;

the inventory managing system storing historical planograms information previously received from the store;

the inventory managing system incorporating real-time changes to a fixture'"'"'s planogram as the changes occur based continuously monitoring the store trait data and planogram information;

the inventory managing system correlating the store trait data with the retail-level planogram information by matching fixture identifiers in the store trait data with fixture identifiers in the planogram information to form store-level mapped data;

the inventory managing system using the customer demographic information and the store-level mapped data to determine a fixture-level safety stock level for the product in the identified store; and

the inventory managing system triggering a planogram recommendation and a fixture-level replenishment order for an amount of the product, when the fixture-level perpetual quantity of the product falls below the determined fixture-level safety stock level, where the planogram recommendation and the amount are calculated based on the store trait data, customer demographic information, the fixture-level quantity, the historical planograms information, and the fixture'"'"'s changed planogram of the fixture.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising a provider providing the replenishment order to the store.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the planogram information comprises a fixture level information.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the planogram information comprises a product code information.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the planogram information comprises a product vendor information.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising the inventory managing system receiving sales data from the store.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the sales data comprises a historic sales data and a forecast sales data.