WO2012018852A2 - Managing an inventory comprising serialized products - Google Patents

Managing an inventory comprising serialized products Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2012018852A2
WO2012018852A2 PCT/US2011/046320 US2011046320W WO2012018852A2 WO 2012018852 A2 WO2012018852 A2 WO 2012018852A2 US 2011046320 W US2011046320 W US 2011046320W WO 2012018852 A2 WO2012018852 A2 WO 2012018852A2
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
product
unit
serialized
robot
order
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US2011/046320
Other languages
French (fr)
Other versions
WO2012018852A3 (en
Inventor
Karsten Kell
Mark J. Keller
Jesse J. Garcia
Matthew Stephen Kolodzej
Original Assignee
Brightstar Corporation
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from US12/848,806 external-priority patent/US20120030070A1/en
Priority claimed from US12/848,815 external-priority patent/US8571700B2/en
Priority claimed from US12/848,811 external-priority patent/US8812147B2/en
Application filed by Brightstar Corporation filed Critical Brightstar Corporation
Publication of WO2012018852A2 publication Critical patent/WO2012018852A2/en
Publication of WO2012018852A3 publication Critical patent/WO2012018852A3/en

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/08—Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
    • G06Q10/087—Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G05—CONTROLLING; REGULATING
    • G05B—CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS OR ELEMENTS
    • G05B19/00—Programme-control systems
    • G05B19/02—Programme-control systems electric
    • G05B19/418—Total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, e.g. direct or distributed numerical control [DNC], flexible manufacturing systems [FMS], integrated manufacturing systems [IMS], computer integrated manufacturing [CIM]
    • G05B19/41865—Total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, e.g. direct or distributed numerical control [DNC], flexible manufacturing systems [FMS], integrated manufacturing systems [IMS], computer integrated manufacturing [CIM] characterised by job scheduling, process planning, material flow
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G05—CONTROLLING; REGULATING
    • G05B—CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS OR ELEMENTS
    • G05B2219/00—Program-control systems
    • G05B2219/30—Nc systems
    • G05B2219/32—Operator till task planning
    • G05B2219/32392—Warehouse and loading, unloading station and shop and machining centers and in out buffer
    • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
    • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
    • Y02P—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PRODUCTION OR PROCESSING OF GOODS
    • Y02P90/00—Enabling technologies with a potential contribution to greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions mitigation
    • Y02P90/02—Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

Various embodiments are directed to a system for managing an inventory comprising serialized products. A robot may be instructed to load a plurality of serialized product units to a plurality of robot-accessible bins such that each of the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises no more than one serialized product unit. A computer system may receive from a requesting system, an order specifying a serialized product. The computer system may also receive from a data storage system a serial identifier associated with a first unit of the serialized product that is present at one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins and is indicated at the data storage system as being available. The computer system may also write to the data storage system an indication that the First unit is reserved, and transmit to the requesting system a message comprising an indication of the order and an indication of the serial identifier.

Description

TITLE
MANAGING AN INVENTORY COMPRISING SERIALIZED PRODUCTS
INVENTORS
Mark Keller
Jesse Garcia
Matthew Kolodzej
Karsten Kell BACKGROUND
Serialized products are products where each unit is described by a unique serial identifier. A product unit's serial identifier may be used to facilitate activation of the product unit and, in some cases, is also used during operation. Network devices, such as mobile telephones, smart phones, net books, mobile modems, etc., are examples of serialized products. During the activation process, a network device's serial identifier is associated with an end user or account. When the network device attempts to access a proprietary or subscription-based network, the device's serial identifier may be utilized to determine whether the device is authorized for access (e.g.. based on whether the serial identifier is associated with an account in good standing, based on whether the associated account provides for the requested service, etc.).
Serialized products may also provide other features including, for example, theft prevention and product tracking. For theft prevention, each product unit may be stocked in a disabled state. During the sales process, the seller may activate the product unit by storing its serial identifier at a central network location in a manner indicating that the product unit is authorized to activate. When an end user attempts to turn the product unit on, the product unit may contact the central network location. The product unit may turn on only if its unique identifier is indicated to be activated. Because product unit activation takes place during payment, an unauthorized user of the unit (e.g. , a thief) may not be able to use it. For product tracking, a unique identifier may be used to monitor the life of a product unit including, for example, sales to an end user, repair instances, returns, etc. It is important for retai lers of serialized products to match each purchaser or end user with a specific product unit. For example, an end user of a mobile telephone must be provided with the specific mobile telephone unit that was activated on the end user's account. Otherwise, the end user's mobile network carrier will not recognize the mobile telephone as being associated with the end user's account. Also, the end user of a theft-protccicd product must be provided with a product unit thai has been activated at the central network location. Otherwise, the end user will not be able to use the product unit.
Product and end user matching can be relatively simple at a retail location where the serialized products are physically in-stock. For example, a retail clerk may pick a product unit from stock to initiate activation. Activating the product unit may involve initiating a contract between the end user and a network service provider, adding the product unit to an existing service provider account, marking the product unit as activated at a central network location, etc. The activation may be performed by the retailer or a separate activation entity (e.g. , a mobile network or service provider). If the activation is successful, then the picked product unit may be sold to the end user. If the activation fails, the clerk can physically return the unit to stock. According to this example, however, the end user must buy the product at a physical store location. Also, the retailer must carry enough product stock at each retail location to satisfy all potential end users at that location, or risk losing business.
Warehouse-based sales of serialized products overcome some of the short-comings of in-stock retailing. For example, retailers that sell serialized products from a warehouse may not need to keep as much in-store inventory. Also, warehouse-based sales may eliminate the need for purchasers to buy serialized products at physical store locations altogether. Internet, mail-order, telephone and other communications techniques may be used. In addition to ihese advantages, however, warehouse-based sales of serialized products introduce enormous complexities and problems of their own. For example, a single warehouse typically services multiple retail locations and/or on-line retailers, resulting in much higher sales volume than a single physical store location. It is much more difficult to match a product unit to an order as
Figure imgf000004_0001
the number of product units in-stock and the number of orders increase. Accordingly, systems and methods are needed to control and scale the process of serialized product inventory management.
FIGURES
Various embodiments of the present invention are described here by way of example in conjunction with the following figures, wherein:
Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a computerized system for managing an inventory comprising serialized products.
,. Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a basic data structure that may be used by the product reservation system for describing the inventor}'.
Figure 3 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow executed by the system of Figure 1 to receive and process an order for a serialized product.
Figure 4 illustrates an alternate embodiment of the system of Figure 1 .
Figure 4A illustrates another embodiment of the system of Figure 4 comprising multiple warehouses.
Figure 5 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow executed by the system of Figure 4 to receive and process an order for a serialized product.
Figure 5A is a chart illustrating one embodiment of a hierarchy of customer units. Figure 5B illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of the maintenance interface illustrated in Figure 1 and 4.
Figure 6 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of the warehouse facility shown in Figure 1.
Figure 7 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow that may be executed by the warehouse control system shown in Figure 1 to ful fill an order specifying at least a non- serialized product and at least one serialized product stored at a robot-accessible bin. Figures 8, 9 and 10 illustrate one embodiment of a generalized process flow for
fulfilling orders at a warehouse facility or facilities that comprise robot accessible bins, non- serialized product bins, non-reserved serialized product bins and manual serialized product
bins.
Figure 1 1 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a floor area of a
warehouse facility comprising a robotic picking line.
Figure 12 illustrates one embodiment of a portion of the floor area of Figure 1 1
showing a robot arm in additional detail.
Figure 13 illustrates one embodiment of the intake station of the floor area of Figure
1 1 .
Figure 14 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow for inducting product units
into the robot accessible bins via the intake station.
Figure 1 5 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow for picking, packing and
shipping an order specifying a serial product unit. DESCRIPTION
Various embodiments are directed to systems and methods for managing and
distributing an inventory including serialized products. Each unit of a serialized product may
be described by a unique serial identifier. The serial identifier of a product unit may be
associated with the product unit itself (e.g., an International Mobile Equipment Identifier
(IMEI) or other serial number). In addition, or instead, a product unit's serial identifier may
be associated with a potentially removable component of the product unit. For example, the
product unit's serial identifier may comprise a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) number or
Media Access Control (MAC) address associated with a card or other hardware or software
installed in the product unit. In some embodiments, a product unit's serial identifier may
comprise both a portion associated with the unit itself and a portion associated with a unit
4
i component. For example, the serial identifier of some network devices may comprise both a SIM number and an identifier specific to the unit.
In some embodiments., the inventor)' may also comprise non-reserved products. Non- reserved products may comprise non-serialized products and/or non-reserved serialized products. Non-serialized products may include any sort of product that either does not have a unique serial identifier, or does not require that specific product units be matched with end users. For example, in the context of mobile phone sales, non-serialized products may include accessories such as chargers, ear pieces, etc. Non-reserved serialized products may be serialized products that are stocked for sale without activation. For example, some purchasers of serialized products may activate the serialized product units after purchase, eliminating the requirement that individual product units be matched with individual end users at the time of purchase.
The inventory may be stored at one or more warehouse facilities. Each warehouse facility may comprise a plurality of inventory bins, where each bin connotes any specific location where inventory may be stored. For example, a bin may refer to a physical container for holding product items and/or simply to a location on a shelf. One or more of the warehouse facilities may comprise a robot or other automated picking unit configured to place product units at and retrieve product units from the inventory bins. The operation of the robot, and of other aspects of the warehouse facilities, may be directed by a computerized warehouse control system or other suitable computer system or systems. According to various embodiments, at least a portion of the inventory bins for serialized products may be configured to hold a single product unit such that there is a one-to-one relationship between a serialized product unit and a corresponding inventory bin.
The inventory may be managed and/or tracked by a computerized product reservation system. The product reservation system may monitor the status and location of each serialized product unit of the inventory and may handle orders for product units. Orders may be received from computerized requesting systems. For example, the product reservation system may receive, directly or indirectly, from a requesting system an order specifying a first serialized product. If a unit of the first serialized product is available, the product reservation system may reserve the unit and provide the unit's serial identifier to the requesting system. The requesting system may subsequently confirm or release the order. I'or example, the requesting system may utilize the product unit's serial identifier to attempt to activate the product unit. If the identified product unit is successfully activated, the requesting system may confirm the order. If the identified product unit is not successfully activated (e.g., the end user's contract is declined, the end user decides not to complete the transaction, etc.), then the requesting system may release the order. It will be appreciated that activation may be performed by the requesting system or by a separate activation entity (e.g., a service or network provider). Upon confirmation, the warehouse control system may pick the reserved product unit and provide the unit to the customer and/or end user (e.g., ship the product unit to the customer or end user). For example, the automated picking unit may pick the reserved product unit from a known inventory bin. If the order is released, the product reservation system may release the reserved product unit, making it available for additional orders. It will be appreciated that the activation process may be transparent to the product reservation system and/or the warehouse control system.
According to various embodiments, the systems and methods described herein may be utilized by a distributor entity to make the inventory available to be sold to and/or by one or more customer entities (e.g., and units thereof). For example, orders for serialized products may originate from purchasers through a customer entity. The customer entity (e.g., via a requesting system) may generate the order based on the desired purchase of its purchaser. Once the order is provided to the warehouse distributor entity, it may be filled as described herein.
Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a computerized system 100 for managing an inventory comprising serialized products. The system 100 may comprise various computer systems including, for example, a product reservation system 102 and a warehouse control system 104. The product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may be in communication with one or more warehouse facilities 106. The warehouse facilities 106 may comprise inventory bins 1 10 for storing product units making up the inventory. In some embodiments, warehouse facilities 106 may comprise packing and/or shipping facilities 1 12 for preparing orders. A lso, according to various embodiments, some or all of the warehouse facilities 106 may comprise one or more robots or other automated picking units 108 for placing product units to and retrieving product units from the inventory bins 1 10. The robot or robots 108 may be in communication with one or more data stores 1 19 for storing data.
The robot 108 may be or comprise any suitable type of automated pick-and-place device. For example, the robot 108 is described herein as a robot arm 1226 that is slidable on a rail 1204 to place and remove product units at robot-accessible bins locations 1 1 14, 1 1 16 (See Figures 1 1 - 12). According to various embodiments, such a robot 108 may be obtained from WYNRIGHT 1NTERLOGIST1CS of Elk Grove. IL. It will be appreciated, however, that the robot 108 may comprise any other type of automated picking device configured to respond to commands in the manner described herein to store and retrieve product units. Examples of other known automating picking devices include, automated fork li ts, automated shelving units, automated carrousel systems, automated mini-loaders, automated vacuum delivery systems, automated sorters, etc.
The product reservation system 102 may track and/or manage the inventory. For example, the product reservation system 102 may track and maintain data describing the status of product units included in the inventory. The data may be stored, for example, at one or more data stores 1 16. The product reservation system 102 may track the status of all products in the inventory or, in various embodiments, may track the status of serialized products only. Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a basic data structure 200 that may be used by the product reservation system 102 for keeping data describing the inventory- The data structure 200 is described to illustrate the types of data that may be kept by the product reservation system 102 regarding the status of the inventory.
According to the example data structure 200, each unit of serialized products 202 may be individually assigned a status and activation information. For each serialized product unit, the data structure 200 may indicate a product (220), a unique serial identifier (222), an inventory bin 1 10 where the product unit is located (224) a status (226) and activation information (227). The activation information (227) may describe the activation process including, for example, an activation entity for activating the product unit, a status of an activation of the product unit, etc. It will be appreciated that although the activation process may be managed by the requesting system 1 14 or separate activation entity, in some embodiments, the product reservation system 102 or other component of the system 100 may manage and/or perform activation. According to various embodiments, each indicated inventory bin 1 10 may comprise only one product unit, or may comprise multiple product units. Also, in embodiments utilizing the robot 108, the robot 108 may have a plurality of assigned inventory bins 1 10, and may place and retrieve product units at its assigned inventory bins 1 10 in a manner that is transparent to the product reservation system 102. For example, the data structure 200 kept by the product reservation system 102 may simply indicate that the corresponding product unit is at an inventory bin 1 10 assigned to the robot 108.
The status 226 of a product unit may generally indicate whether the product unit may be used to fulfill orders. For example, a product unit may be indicated as "available" if it is in-stock and is not currently promised to an existing order. The product unit may be indicated as un-available if it is in-stock and assigned to an existing order. In various embodiments, the status 226 may indicate gradations of availability and unavailability. For example, a product unit that is assigned to an order that has not yet been confirmed or released may be indicated as reserved. If the order is confirmed (e.g., if serialized product activation was successful), then the status of the product unit may be indicated as confirmed or reserved-confirmed, while the product unit remains in-stock. If an order is released (e.g.. if the serialized product activation is unsuccessful or the purchaser decides not to complete the purchase), the status 226 of the product unit may be returned to available. In various embodiments, if an order is cancelled without being released by the requesting system 1 1 (e.g., indicating that an internal event caused order cancellation), then the status 226 of the product unit may be indicated as quarantined until the integrity of the product unit can be confirmed. Confirming the integrity of the product unit may comprise, for example, visually inspecting the product unit, electronically scanning the product unit for physically integrity, manually or automatically verifying that the product unit is associated with the correct serial identifier at the product reservation system 102. This may prevent potentially defective or mislabeled product units from being used to fulfill future orders. According to various embodiments orders may released and/or confirmed either partially or completely. For example, a partial confirmation or release may correspond to less than all of the product units indicated by the order.
According to various embodiments, the product reservation system 102 may manage non-reserved products such as non-serialized products and non-reserved serialized products in addition to serialized products. Accordingly, the example data structure 200 may also include entries for non-serialized products 204 and non-reserved serialized products 206. Because non-serialized and non-reserved serialized products need not be uniquely delivered to end use.rs, it may not be necessan' to track unique information about each non-serialized or non-reserved serialized product unit. Accordingly, the example data structure 200 need only comprise one entry for each product type (although multiple entries for a single non- serialized or non-reserved serialized product type may be used in some circumstances). For each product type, the example data structure 200 may indicate a product name (228), a quantity of the product in-stock (230) and an inventory bin or bins 1 10 where units of the product are located (232). If there are multiple inventory bins 1 10 comprising units of the product, then a quantity of product units in each in ventory bin 1 10 may also be indicated. Referring back 10 Figure I , the warehouse control system 104 may manage the operations of the warehouse facility 1 06. For example, the warehouse control system 104 may manage the intake of new product units including, for example, new serialized product units. Intake may comprise receiving new product units and placing the product units at inventory bins 1 1 0. The warehouse control system 104 may also manage the fulfillment of confirmed product orders. Fulfillment of a confirmed order may comprise picking product units, including specific serialized product units, to complete an order. In some
embodiments, fulfillment of an order may also comprise packing and/or shipping the order utilizing packing/shipping facilities 1 12, performing quality control, etc. The warehouse control system 104 may manage the operations of the warehouse facilities 106 in a manual automated or mixed manner. According to manual methods,, product picking may be performed manually. The warehouse control system 104 may generate intake and/or pick instructions and, in various embodiments, may also receive reports of intake and/or picking progress (e.g. , scans indicating product location). According to automated methods, the warehouse control system 104 may utilize the robot 108 to perform intake and/or picking. Data used to execute the functionality of the warehouse control system 104 may be stored at one or more data stores 1 1 7. The warehouse control system 104 may be comprised of various custom and/or off-the-shelf components. For example, according to various embodiments, the warehouse control system 104 may utilize a third party warehouse management system such as the RADIO BEACON product available from ACCELLOS of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In various embodiments, the product reservation system 102 and/or warehouse control system 104 may be in communication with a computerized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system 1 1 8. The ERP system 1 18 may be any suitable system for managing business operations including, for example, assets, inventory and accounting functions. According to various embodiments, the ERP system 1 1 8 may be in electronic communication with one or more data stores 122, storing business entity-related information. Example ERP systems are 5 available from ORACLE, JD EDWARDS and SAP. The ERP system 1 18 may maintain inventory status records, but in the context of business and accounting rules. For example, the status of a product unit in the ERP system 1 18 may change only upon a change of the unit's business or accounting status (e.g., when a payment is owed, when physical stock is assigned to a confirmed order, elc). Reserving a product unit for an un-confirmed order may
10 not be such an event. Accordingly, the inventory status data maintained by the ERP system 1 1 8, may indicate that a product unit is available until the product unit is assigned to a confirmed order. In some embodiments, the ERP system 1 18 may also be in communication with a customer ERP system 120. The customer ERP system 120 may be implemented by a customer business entity that purchases product units from the inventory. The ERP system
1 5 1 18 may be in communication with the customer ERP system 120 to exchange information regarding pending and completed orders for product units from the inventory.
A maintenance interface 130 may be implemented by one or more of the systems 102 104, 106, 1 18 of the system 100 and may allow various users to access and maintain the various components of the system 100. According to various embodiments, the product0 reservation system 102, warehouse control system 104, warehouse facility 106, and ERP system 1 18 may be implemented by a single business distributor business entity 101 (e.g. , a warehouse and distribution entity). It will be appreciated, however, that the functionalities of the components comprising the system 100 may be distributed across more or fewer business entities according to any suitable configuration. Also, according to various embodiments, all5 or a portion of the functionality of the product reservation system 102 and/or warehouse . control system 104 may be implemented by an enterprise resource planning system, such as 1 18.
The requesting system 1 14, shown in Figure 1 , may originate orders directly or indirectly to system 100 (e.g. , via the product reservation system 102, the ERP system 1 18,0 etc.). The requesting system 1 14 may be configured in any suitable form. For example, according to various embodiments, the requesting system 1 14 may comprise a software front end (such as a Web-based front end) provided by the distributor entity 101 to customers for receiving product orders. Also, according to various embodiments, the requesting system 1 1 may comprise a software front end (such as a Web-based front end) specific to a customer business entity, or unit thereof, for transferring product orders from the customer business entity to the product reservation system 102. For example, the product reservation system 102 may operate according to a defined communication interface. Requesting systems 1 14 may be designed by various parties to communicate with the product reservation system 102. the ERP system 1 18 or both via the defined interface. According to various embodiments, the requesting system 1 14 may also manage the product unit activation process, either directly or via a separate activation entity (not shown). Although only one requesting system 1 14 is shown, it will be appreciated- that multiple requesting systems 1 14 may be in contact with and providing orders to the system 100 (e.g. , via the product reservation system 102 and/or inventory interface system 124 shown in Figure 4).
According to various embodiments, the requesting system 1 14 may be a consumer- facing interface deployed by the distributor entity 101 and/or a customer business entity or unit thereof. For example, the customer business entity, or unit thereof, may act as a retailer, selling products from the inventor)' through a requesting system 1 14 that may be branded for the customer business entity or unit. When a purchaser orders a product from the inventory, the customer business entity or unit may purchase the product from the distributor entity 101 and then re-sell the product to the purchaser. The requesting system 1 14 may be made available to potential purchasers according to any suitable method including, for example, via the Internet, via a kiosk present at a retail location, etc. Potential purchasers may use the requesting system 1 14 directly to view the inventor)' and place orders. When a potential purchaser views a product from the inventory, for example, the requesting system 1 14 may make an availability request to the product reservation system 104 and display to the potential purchaser whether the viewed item is available and, in various embodiments, how many units are in-stock. Γη some embodiments, the requesting system 1 14 may be intended for use by a clerk, employee or agent of the customer business entity. For example, a potential purchaser may come into contact with the clerk at a retail location. The clerk may facilitate the potential purchasers' order of a serialized product utilizing the requesting system 1 14. It will further be appreciated that, in some embodiments, the requesting system 1 14, as shown, may be omitted and orders may be received by the product reservation system 104 directly from a customer ER.P 120. For example, the customer ERP 120, or other order originating device, may be generally referred to as the requesting system.
Figure 3 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow 300 executed by the system 100 to receive and process an order for a serialized product. The process flow 300 is illustrated with five rows 302, 304, 306, 308, 3 10. Each row corresponds to a component of the system 100 and actions in each row may be performed by the corresponding system component. Row 302 may comprise actions of the request ing system 1 14. Row 304 may comprise actions of a transaction coordinator. The transaction coordinator may be a software package executed by the product reservation system 102, the warehouse control system 104, the ERP system 1 18 or any other computer system to facilitate communications between the various computer systems. Row 306 may comprise actions of the product reservation system 306. Row 308 may comprise actions of the ERP system 1 18. In addition, row 3 10 may comprise aciions of the warehouse control system 104. It will be appreciated that, in various embodiments, the actions shown by the process flow 300 may be performed by systems other than those indicated in Figure 3.
At 3 12, the requesting system 1 14 may send an order to the product reservation system 102. The order may indicate at least one serialized product. The order may be received by the product reservation system 102, for example, via the transaction coordinator. In response to the order, the product reservation system 102 may identify an available unit of the indicated serialized product. The available unit may be physically located at a warehouse facility 106. Provided that a unit of the serialized product is available, the product reservation system 306 may reserve the unit at 314. For example, the product reservation system 102 may change the status of the unit from available to unavailable (e.g., at data store(s) 1 1 6). Because the product unit is not yet assigned to a confirmed order, it may still be indicated as available by the ERP system 1 18. An indication of the unit's serial identifier may be provided to the requesting system 1 14. The requesting system 1 14 may utilize the serial identifier to activate the reserved product unit, for example, as described herein.
According to various embodiments, the system 1 00 (e.g.. the product reservation system 1 02) may comprise functionality for implementing business rules for determining whether to reserve available units of a product for an order and/or whether to indicate available products in response to an availability request. There may be circumstances where the distributor entity 101 will not reserve additional units of a serialized product, even if those units are available (e.g., in-stock and not reserved to any other orders). For example, for some products (e.g., new or popular products) di fferent customer business entities and/or units thereof may be allocated a threshold number of product units or a limited number of product units over a given period of time. The threshold may be defined by a catalog associated with the customer business entity or unit . If an order from a customer business entity or unit exceeds the threshold number of product units, the order may be refused.
Likewise, if a business entity's threshold has been exceeded, an availability request from a requesting system 1 14 associated with the business entity may indicate that no units are available. The thresholds assigned to different customer business entities and units may be determined according to any suitable methods. In some embodiments, thresholds may be set based on contracts between a customer business entity and the distributor entity 101 and/or based on the level of business provided to the distributor entity 101 by the customer business entity. For example, customers that regularly purchase large quantities of the inventory may be given higher thresholds. In various embodiments, customer business entities may be divided into tiers (e.g., based on historic purchase levels). Customer business entities in a common tier may have the same thresholds for one or more products. A customer business entity or unit's tier may be indicated, for example, in the entity or unit's catalog. Additional business rules may be based on the popularity of certain products. For example, certain products may be assigned a limited sell-through rate (e.g., based on popularity). The sell-through rate may be specific to a business entity or unit, or may generally apply to all customer entities or units. In this way. the distributor entity 101 may maintain the stock of a given product despite its popularity. I f an order would cause a product to exceed the desired sell-through rate, cither generally or for the requesting customer business entity or unit, then it may be denied and/or delayed. Also, business rules may be based on order size. The system 100 may be configured to refuse orders specifying a number of serialized units exceeding a predeterm ined size. Finally, some business rules may be based on the credit rating of a customer entity or unit thereof. If a customer entity or unit does not have a certain credit level, orders from that customer entity or unit may be denied.
The requesting system 1 14 may send a con firmed order at 3 16. For example, the confirmed order may be sent if the activation of the reserved product unit is successful. In various embodiments, the confirmed order may originate from the customer ERP system 120. The transaction coordinator, at 3 18, may forward the confirmed order to the product reservation system 102. At 320, the product reservation system 102 may update the status of the product unit based on the confirmed order. For example, the product reservation system 1 02 may change the status of the order to indicate that the product unit has been reserved to a confirmed order. The transaction coordinator, at 322, may also indicate the confirmed order to the ERP system 1 1 8. At 324, the ERP system 1 18 may mark the product unit as unavailable. In addition, the ERP system 1 18 (or the product reservation system 102) may instruct the warehouse control system 104 to pick and ship the order (e.g., by generating a pick instruction or instruction as described herein). At 328, the warehouse control system 104 may manage picking of the order.
At step 330, the warehouse control system 104 may manage shipment of the order and may indicate shipment to the ERP system 1 1 8. The ERP system 1 1 8 may record the order as shipped at 332. According to various embodiments, the ERP system 1 1 8 may write shipping information (e.g., data shipped, address shipped to, etc.) to a data store (or location thereof) accessible to other components of the system 100 at 334. At 336, the shipping information may be sent as a confirmation. The confirmation may be sent by the transaction coordinator, the product reservation system 102. the ERP system 1 18, the warehouse control system 3 10 or any other suitable component of the system 100. The system 100 and process flow 300 are described with the use of a separate ERP system 1 18. It will be appreciated, however, that the systems and methods described herein may be practiced without an ERP system 1 1 8. For example, the functionality ascribed herein to the ERP system 1 18 may be performed by one or more of the product reservation system 102, the warehouse control system 104 or any other component of the system 100.
The process flow 300 illustrated in Figure 3 shows a scenario where an order is confirmed, picked and shipped. It will be appreciated, however, that there are scenarios where an order, sent at 312, is not ultimately confirmed, picked and shipped. For example, when the requesting system 1 14 receives the serial identifier corresponding to the reserved product unit (e.g., after 3 14), it may initiate an activation of the product unit on behalf of an end user. The end user may be the purchaser or other person or entity that is the intended user of the product unit. For example, when the product is a theft-secured item, the end user may be the individual who is purchasing the product unit. Also, for example, when the product is a mobile telephone or other network device, the end user may be the individual who will use the network device. The end user may be the purchaser of the product unit or may receive it from an intermediate purchasing party (e.g., an employer). Provided that the activation is successful, the requesting system 1 14 may confirm the order and the process flow may continue as shown in Figure 3. I the activation is unsuccessful, however, the requesting system 1 14 may send a release of the order, instead of the confirmed order. Upon receipt of the release, the product reservation system 102 may mark the status of the identified product unit as available. According to various embodiments, a product unit may be maintained in a reserved state for a limited period of time. If an order is not confirmed within the limited period of time (e.g., if the product unit remains reserved), then the product unit may be released and marked as available.
According to various embodiments, it may be possible for an order to fail during processing by the systems of the selling distributor entity 101 (e.g., at the product reservation system 102, the warehouse control system 104 and/or the warehouse facility 106). For example, the product reservation system 102 may refuse an order if no units of the ordered product arc available. It is also possible for an order to fail during packing and/or shipping (e.g., if the identified product unit is damaged, etc.). For example, when an order is failed by the systems of the selling distributor entity 101 , it may indicate an error associated with the product unit or units (e.g., a physical defect in the unit, an incorrectly scanned or entered serial identifier, etc.). In various embodiments, when an order fails during processing of the systems of the selling distributor entity 101 , the product reservation system 102 may be configured to mark the status of the product unit or units causing the failure as quarantined. The quarantined status of a product unit may be removed upon verification of the unit's status. It will be appreciated that the communication and utilization of the unit's status may be conveyed by one or more systems in communication with the product reservation system.
The process How 300 illustrates the handling of an order comprising a single serialized product unit. It will be appreciated that the system 100 may also handle orders that comprise multiple serialized products, non-serialized products, and/or non-reserved serialized products. In a case where the order comprises multiple serialized products, the process flow 300 may be performed similar to the manner shown in Figure 3. Upon receiving the order, the product reservation system 102 may reserve all required product units at 3 14. Provided that activation of all identified product units is successful, the requesting system 1 14 may confirm all serialized products in the order at 316. The remaining actions of the process flow 300 may be performed as indicated with each action being performed on each of the identified product units. In the event that one or more of the identified product units cannot be successfully activated or is otherwise cancelled, the requesting system 1 14 may cancel the entire order, prompting the product reservation system 102 to release all of the identified product units. Alternatively, the requesting system may send a partial confirmed order and a partial release. The product reservation system 102 may fill the portion of the order that is confirmed and release the identified product units corresponding to the partially released portion of the order.
It will also be appreciated that the order may indicate non-serialized products or non- reserved serialized products. According to various embodiments, the order may indicate whether each non-serialized or non-reserved serial ized product request is conditioned upon confirmation of a serialized product request or is independent. If a request is independent, then the portion of the order corresponding to the non-serialized product or the non-reserved serialized product may be forwarded to the ERP system 1 18 and/or warehouse control system 104 for picking and shipping upon receipt. If the request is dependent, then it may be held until the associated serialized product request is confirmed. According to various embodiments, when an order specifies more than one product unit, it may be filled from multiple warehouse facilities 106. For example, if a first product unit from the order is only in-stock at a first warehouse facility 106 and a second product from the order is only in-stock at a second warehouse facility 106, then units of the products may be picked and shipped ' from the respective warehouse facilities 106 where they are in-stock.
It will be appreciated that the product reservation system 102 may comprise additional functionality as well. For example, the product reservation system 102 may respond to availability requests from the requesting system 1 14. The requesting system 1 14 may direct an availability request to the product reservation system 102. The product reservation system 102 may respond with an indication of whether units of the product are available.
According to various embodiments, the functionality attributed to the product reservation system 102, the warehouse control system 104 and the ERP system 1 18 may be distributed among the systems 102. 104, 1 18, etc., in any suitable manner. Also, although the systems 102, 104, 1 18, etc., are illustrated in Figure I as separate systems, it will be appreciated that, in practice, these systems 102, 104, 1 1 8 may be implemented having more or fewer system components than are shown. For example, in various embodiments, the functionality of the product reservation system 102 and warehouse control system 104 may¬ be implemented by a single computer system. Also, in various embodiments, the functionality of the product reservation system 102 and warehouse control system 104 may be distributed among more than two computer systems.
Figure 4 illustrates an alternate embodiment 100A of the system 100. The system 10OA may operate in a manner similar to that of the system 100 described above, but may distribute the functionality of the system 100 among various components in a manner different from that shown in Figure I . For example, the system 100A may comprise an inventory interface system 124. The inventory interface system 124 may be logically positioned between customer entity systems (e.g., the requesting system 1 14, the customer CRP 120) and the distributor entity 101 systems (e.g., the ERP system 1 18, the product reservation system 102. etc.). The inventor)' interface system 124 may be in communication with one or more data stores 126. According to various embodiments, the inventory interface system 124 may receive orders, order confirmations, availability requests, etc., from the requesting system 1 14. The inventory interface system 124 may also serve as an intermediary between the customer ERP system 120 and the ERP system 1 18. In this way, the product reservation system 102, ERP 1 18 and warehouse control system 104 of the distributor entity 101 may be insulated from customer access. According to various embodiments, this may allow the system 100A to continue to receive orders and order-related information when one or more of the other system components are down (e.g., due to an error, maintenance, etc.). Also, in the system I 00A illustrated in Figure 4, the product reservation system 102 may communicate directly with systems at the warehouse facility 106, for example, to manage the fulfillment of serialized products.
As shown in Figure 4, the system 100A may comprise more than one warehouse facility 106. In the embodiment shown in Figure 4, a single inventory interface system 124, ERP 1 18, product reservation system 102 and warehouse control system 104 may be programmed to manage multiple warehouse facilities 106. For example, the inventory bins 1 10. packing and shipping components 1 12, etc. of each warehouse may be considered together by the various systems 102, 104, 1 18, 124. For example, each warehouse component (bin 1 10, robot 108, packing/shipping component 1 12, etc.) may have an associated location corresponding to the warehouse facility 106 where the component is present, instructions from the various systems 102, 104, 1 1 8, 124 regarding the component may be directed to the appropriate location/warehouse facility 106. Figure 4Λ illustrates another embodiment of the system 100A comprising multiple warehouses 170, 172. Each warehouse 170. 172 may comprise a separate ERP 1 1 8, product reservation system 102, warehouse control system 104 and warehouse facilities 106. A single inventory interface system 124 may manage both warehouses 170, 172. For example, the inventory interface system 124 may direct orders, or portions of orders, to the appropriate warehouse 170, 172. For example, if an order requests a product available at warehouse 170 and not at warehouse 172, the order may be directed to warehouse 170. Also, for example, if an order recites a first product available at warehouse 170 and a second product available at warehouse 172, the inventory interface system 124 may split the order accordingly.
Figure 5 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow 100 executed by the system 100A of Figure 4 to receive and process an order for a serialized product. The process flow 500 is illustrated with six rows 502, 504, 506, 508, 510. 5 12. Actions shown in row 502 may be performed by the requesting system 1 14. Actions shown in row 504 may be performed by the inventory interface system 504. Actions shown in row 506 may be performed by the ERP system 1 18. Actions shown in row 508 may be performed by the product reservation system 102. Actions shown in row 510 may be performed by the warehouse control system 510. Actions shown in row 5 12 may be performed by the robot 108. Although the entity performing each action of the process flow 500 is identified, it will be appreciated that the actions may be distributed among the various components and systems in any suitable way. At 5 14, the requesting system 1 1 may generate an availability request. The availability request may be generated, for example, when a customer agent or potential purchaser requests a portion of the requesting system 1 14 interface corresponding to a particular product. The availability request may be recei%'ed by the inventory interface system 124, at 5 16. In turn, the inventory interface system 124 may forward the availability request to the E P system 1 1 8 at 518 and to the product reservation system 102 at 520. The ERP system 1 18 may reply to the availability request by indicating where its records show any units of the requested product in-stock. As described above, the status kept by the ERP system 1 18 may not account for product units that are reserved for un-confirmed orders. Therefore, availability information from the ERP system 1 18 may be supplemented with availability information received from the product reservation system at 520. Availability information received from the product reservation system 102 may account for reserved product units. It will be appreciated that, in various embodiments, the requesting system 1 14 may submit an order or request the reservation of a serialized product unit without first checking availability. If no product units are available, the requesting system 1 14 request may be denied.
At 522, the requesting system 1 14 may request that a unit of a serialized product be reserved. The inventory interface system 124 may recei%'e the request (524) and forward it to the product reservation system 102. In response to the reservation request, the product reservation system 102 may reserve a unit of the identified serialized product (e.g., by marking a status of the selected product unit at the data store 1 16 as unavailable). Upon reserving the serialized product unit, the product reservation system 102 may send the serial identifier of the reserved unit to the requesting system 1 14 (e.g., via the inventory interface system 124). As described above, the requesting system 1 14 may utilize the serial identifier to, directly or indirectly, activate the reserved unit. According to various embodiments, the inventory interface system 124 may implement business rules similar to those described above in order to determine whether to reserve a product unit or units in response to the request.
At 528, the requesting system 1 14 may generate an order including the reserved unit, which may be received by the inventory interface system 504. For example, the order generated at 528 may indicate the serial identifier of the product unit reserved by the product reservation system 508 at 526. It will be appreciated that the order may also specify products other than the reserved serialized product unit including, for example, other serialized product units, one or more non-reserved products (e.g., non- serialized products, non-reserved serialized products, etc.). According to various embodiments, the reservation request action 522 and order creation action 528 may be performed and transmitted simultaneously (e.g., the order may serve as the reservation request). In some embodiments, the order confirmation action 532 may also occur simultaneously with the reservation request action 522 and the order creation action 528.
At 530. the requesting system 1 1 may confirm all or a portion of the order (e.g., i f the activation of the serialized product unit is successful). The order confirmation may be provided to the ERP system 1 18, which may generate a fulfillment instruction or pick instruction for the order at 534. The fulfillment instruction may be provided to the warehouse control system 104, which may allocate the order to one or more inventory bins 1 10 and/or identify the number and type of shipping cartons to be used at 536. At 538, the warehouse control system 104 may manage the picking of non-serialized products and non-reserved serialized products, if any, that are identified by the order. At 540, the product reservation system 102 may manage the picking of serialized products, including the identified serialized product unit. For example, if the identified serialized product unit is stored at a robot accessible inventory bin. the product reservation system 102 may pick the unit by instructing the robot 108 to perform the pick (542). If the identified serialized product unit is stored at a manual serialized product bin, then the product reservation system 102 may generate a paper or electronic pick instruction that may be provided to a manual picker. According to various embodiments, the product reservation system 102 may also receive scans from the manual picker indicating, for example, the inventory bin that the unit is removed from, the unit itself, and other information related to the pick in order to verify accuracy.
At 544, picked product units for the order may be shipped. For example, the warehouse control system 104 may manage shipping-related tasks such as selecting an appropriate shipping carton or cartons, printing shipping labels and packing slips, handling quality control, etc. At 546, 548 and 552 ship information related to the order may be updated at the ERP system 1 18, the inventory interface system 124 and the product reservation system 102, respectively. A ship notification may be provided to the requesting system 1 14 at 550. It will be appreciated that the shipping process may be organized or arranged in any suitable manner. A more detailed example of the shipping process is provided below with reference to Figure 10. Also, according to various embodiments, the system 100 and/or the system 100A may comprise a notification engine configured to provide an e-mail or other alert upon selected occurrences. For example, an alert may be sent when a order is received, when an order is confirmed, when an order is picked, when an order is shipped, etc. The recipient or recipients of the alert may include, personnel of the distributor entity 101 , personnel of the customer entity, etc. Example events that may trigger an alert may include, for example, when an order becomes pending, when an order is cancelled (either by the customer entity or the distributor entity 101 ), when an order is entered into the ERP 1 18 or the customer ERP 120, when a fulfillment or pick instruction for the order is generated, when the picking of an order is completed, when an order is shipped, etc. For example, an alert sent when an order is shipped may indicate a package carrier and/or tracking number.
According to various embodiments, the system 100 (e.g. , via the product reservation system 102 and/or inventory interface system 124) may organize and provide services to customers at differing levels of granularity. For example, customer business entities may be divided into customer units. Each customer unit may be provided with a dedicated catalog of products from the inventor)' that the customer unit may sell to purchasers. A catalog of products may comprise indications of each product from the inventory that a customer unit is authorized to sell. The content of a customer unit's catalog (including the products present, an allowable sell-through rate, a number of product units available to the customer unit, etc.). may be provided to a customer unit via the requesting system 1 14. The products and quantity of products available to a customer unit via the catalog may be determined, for example, based on agreements betsveen the distributor entity 101 and the customer unit, the discretion of the distributor entity 101 and/or the customer unit etc.
Customer business entities may be divided into customer units in any suitable way. In some embodiments, a customer business entity may comprise multiple companies, with each company assigned a dedicated catalog of products from the inventory. For example, the customer business entity may be a holding company and each company organized under the customer business entity may represent a separate entity owned by the customer business entity, a separate line of business, etc. Also, according to various embodiments, one or more customer units may comprise multiple applications. Each application ma represent a different method for purchasers to purchase product items from the inventory. For example, different applications may represent different requesting systems 1 14, different methods of sale (e.g., on-line, in-storc, telephone order, etc.). In embodiments where a customer unit comprises physical retail locations, each location may be assigned a separate location customer unit. Also, in some embodiments, physical location customer units may be divided into location/application units. For example, a first location/application unit at a physical location may be a kiosk located in a mobile telephone area of the physical location and may utilize a catalog limited to products related to mobile telephones. A second
location/application unit at the physical location may be a second kiosk located in a laptop/computer area of the physical location and may utilize a catalog limited to laptop and related products. Figure 5A is a chart illustrating one embodiment of a hierarchy 580 ofcustomer units.
The organization 582 may correspond to a customer entity and may be the highest level customer unit. In the example shown in Figure 5A, the organization 582 comprises three companies 584, 586, 588. Each company 584, 586, 588 may represent a company owned by the organization 582, a subsidiary of the organization 582, a business unit of the organization 582, etc. Companies 586 and 588 are shown without any sub-customer units, although these units 586, 588 may be assigned applications, locations, etc. Company 584 may comprise one or more applications and/or locations, such as shown. Application 590 may correspond to a purchaser website, which may be or may interface with a requesting system 1 14. Application 592 may correspond to a call center for receiving purchaser orders. For example, automatic or human operators at the call center may utilize a requesting system 1 14 to transmit orders to the inventory interface 124, the product reservation system 102, etc. Locations 594, 596 may correspond to different physical locations (e.g., retail stores, corporate offices, etc.).
Location/Applications 598, 583, 585 may correspond to the possible combinations of locations and applications above. For example, application 592 may be supported by both locations 594 and 596. Accordingly, the hierarchy 580 may comprise two
application/locations corresponding to the application 592, an application/location 583 corresponding to the combination of application 592 and location 594 and an
application/location 583 corresponding to the combination of the application 592 and the location 596. Applicant 590 may only be supported at location 594 and, thus, may only have a single application/location 598 corresponding to the combination. Each
application/location may be associated with a catalog 587, 589. For example, as illustrated in Figure 5A, catalogs 587, 589 are specific to an application 590, 592. It will be appreciated, however, that location catalog constraints may also exist, bringing about a different catalog for each application/location.
According to various embodiments, each customer unit catalog may comprise a list of products making up the catalog. Catalogs may also comprise various other information about products including, for example, descriptions of products as well as product prices. Each product price may represent the price for the product charged by the customer unit to the purchasers. In embodiments where the requesting system 1 14 is implemented by the customer business entity (e.g., a unit of the customer business entity), catalog information such as product descriptions and product prices may be stored at systems of the customer business entity and modified by the customer business entity according to any suitable manner. In embodiments where the requesting system 1 14 is implemented by the business entity 101 (and some embodiments where the requesting system 1 14 is implemented by the customer business entity), catalog information may be stored by the product reservation system 102, the inventorj' interface system 124 or any other suitable component of the system 100. According to various embodiments, customer unit catalogs may be hierarchal in nature. For example, a customer entity may be assigned a catalog comprising all products that may be sold by customer units organized under the customer entity. Customer unit may add additional constraints, resulting in a unique calendar for different customer units.
Figure 5B illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of the maintenance interface 130 illustrated in Figure I and 4. The maintenance interface 130 may be a user interface utilized, for example, by distributor entity 101 administrative users 560 to maintain and/or modify various aspects of the system 100, 100A. For example, the maintenance interface 130 may be configured to manage aspects of interaction between the system 100, I 00A and the customer entity (e.g., via the one or more requesting systems 1 14). As described above, such interaction may implicate the product reservation system 102, the inventorj' interface system 124, the E P 1 18, etc.
According to various embodiments, the maintenance interface 130 may comprise a customer management tool 564. The customer management tool 564 may provide functionality for adding, updating and changing information relating to customer business entities and component customer units as utilized by one or more of the inventory interface sj'stem 124, the product reservation system 102, the ERP system 1 18, etc. For example, an administrative user 560 may change information describing one or more of the customer business entities or component customer units utilizing the requesting system 1 1 or
implementing their own requesting systems 1 14. Such information may include, for
example, organization information describing the specific customer entity implementing or
using a requesting system 1 14, company information describing a company that owns or
operates an organization, application information describing technical details of an interface
between the product reservation system 102 or inventory interface system and a requesting
system 1 14, etc.
A catalog maintenance tool 566 may provide functionality for managing various
catalogs describing the inventory. According to various embodiments, a master catalog may
list all products of the inventor)' offered for sale. As described above, each customer
business entity and/or component business unit may also have a dedicated customer catalog
that lists all of the products of the inventory offered for sale to the customer entity or unit
(e.g., and ultimately available for sale from the customer entity or unit to the purchasers).
The catalog maintenance tool 566 may provide functionality that allows administrative users
560 to modify the master catalog or any customer unit catalogs, for example, by adding
products, removing products, changing the description of products, changing the price of
products (e.g., the price charged to purchasers by the customer unit), etc.
An order management tool 568 may provide functionality for managing orders placed,
for example, to the inventory interface system 124 and/or the product reservation system 102
by a requesting system 1 14. For example, the order management tool 568 may allow
administrative users 560 to view one or more orders. According to various embodiments, the
order management tool 568 may include functionality for sorting orders according to any
suitable criteria including, for example, by pending status. In one example, the order
management tool 568 may display orders that have serialized product units that are reserved,
but have not yet been confirmed. Such orders may be sorted and/or filtered, for example, by
product. The order management tool 568 may also have functionality allowing
27
I administrative users to manipulate orders. For example, an administrative user 560 may be able to use the order management tool to add or cancel an order, add or cancel the reservation of a serialized product unit, eic.
A customer maintenance portal 570 may be directed to customer users 562 and may allow the customer users 562 to maintain and/or modify aspects of the interface between their customer business entities and the system 100. For example, the customer maintenance portal 750 may provide functionality allowing the customer users 562 to modify their customer unit catalog. Such modifications may include changing the price of a product (e.g., the price charged by the customer unit to the purchaser), changing the description of a product provided to a purchaser, etc.
A user maintenance tool 572 may comprise functionality for managing which users have access to different components of the maintenance interface 130. For example, an administrative user 560 may utilize the user maintenance tool to modify the access rights of other administrative users 560 as well as various customer users 572. Certain users 560, 562 may have access only to defined tools 564, 566, 568, 570, 572, or defined functionality with certain tools. Authorization of users 560, 572 may be handled by any suitable methods.
Users 560, 562 may have roles that determine their access to the various tools 564, 566, 568, 570, 572. For example, customer users 562 may have a role with a customer unit or units and may, therefore, may have access limited to catalogs associated with that unit or units.
Figure 6 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of the warehouse facility 1 06 of Figure 1. The facility 106 may comprise inventory bins 1 10, at least one robot 108, and packing/shipping stations 1 12. The inventory bins 1 10 as well as the packing and shipping stations 1 12 may be interconnected by a transport system 612. The transport system 612 may be any type of product transport system suitable for moving product units from one location to another. According to various embodiments, the transport system 612 may comprise one or more separate or interconnected conveyors. Figure 6 also illustrates the warehouse control system 104 configured to manage the operation of the various other components at the ι υυο δΐ _ i warehouse facility 106. According to various embodiments, the functionality ascribed herein to the warehouse control system 104 may be performed by the product reservation system 102 or any other suitable system. For example, as described above., the picking of serialized product units may be directly managed by the product reservation system 102, as described above with reference to Figures 4-5.
Inventory bins 1 10 may comprise multiple inventory bin types, for example, based on the products that the bins are designed to store and/or the methods by which the products are designed to be picked. According to various embodiments, the inventor)' bins 1 10 may comprise robot accessible bins 602, non-scrialized product bins 606, non-reserved serialized product bins 608 and manual serialized product bins 610. Product units may be placed directly at a bin or, in various embodiments, may be first placed in a tray or other intermediate container. The tray may then be placed at the bin. The tray may be any suitable container for holding the product unit.
The robot accessible bins 602 may be any kind of inventory bin that is accessible to a robot, such as robot 108. The robot 108 may be configured to place product units at the bins 602 and retrieve product units from the bins 602. According to various embodiments all or a portion of the robot accessible bins 602 may be utilized to store serialized products. The robot 108 may comprise functionality for placing and retrieving specified product units on demand. For example, each of the robot accessible bins 602 may be configured to hold a single serialized product unit. During intake, the robot 108 may place each product unit at a robot accessible bin 602. When the robot 108 is instructed to pick a particular serialized product unit, it may recall the bin 602 where the unit is stored, pick the unit from that bin 602, and place it on the transport system 612. In some embodiments, more than one serialized product unit may be stored at each bin 602. For example, the robot 108 may comprise a scanner, camera or other functionality allowing it to identify and pick an identified product unit from a location 602 comprising multiple product units. Operation of the robot 108 may be managed by the product reservation system 102 (as illustrated in Figures 4-5). the warehouse control system (as illustrated in Figures I and 3). or any other component of" the system 100.
Manual serialized product bins 610 may comprise serialized product units stocked for manual rather than robotic picking. For example, some or all of the serialized product units stocked at the facility' may be assigned to the manual serialized product bins 610. Intake of serialized product units to the bins 610 may be managed by the warehouse control system
104. For example, the warehouse control system 104 may assign each serial ized product unit to a specific bin 610. According to various embodiments, multiple product units may be assigned to each bin 610. The maximum number of product units assigned to a given bin 610 may be determined to both minimize the number of bins 610 required and minimize the amount of time required for manual pickers to identify a particular product unit within a bin 610. According to various embodiments, the product bins 610 may be optimized for human placement and picking. For example, the product bins 610 may be clustered at a height that an average manual picker can reach without excessive bending or stretching. For example, the product bins 610 may be clustered between two and six feet off of the floor.
Intake and picking of the manual serialized product bins 6 10 are described below as being managed by the product reservation system 102 (as illustrated in Figures 4-5). In some embodiments, however, intake and picking of the manual serialized product bins may be managed by the warehouse control system 104 (as illustrated in Figures 1 and 3). During intake, bin assignments made by the product reservation system 102 may be communicated to manual pickers according to any suitable means. For example, the product reservation system 102 may generate one or more paper or electronic placement instructions. Manual pickers may receive the placement instructions, locate the indicated product unit or units and place the unit or units at a bin 610 identified by the ticket. Also, according to various embodiments, the manual pickers may be equipped with a scanning device in electronic communication with the warehouse control system 104. The manual pickers may retrieve a product unit assigned to the bins 610 and scan it with the scanning device. The scanning device may capture a unique identifier of the product unit (e.g., the serial identifier) and provide the identifier to the warehouse control system 104. The product reservation system 102 may receive the identifier, and return to the scanning device an indication of the appropriate bin 610. The scanning device may display the indication of the bin 610, which may prompt the manual picker to place the product unit at the bin 610. According to various embodiments, the manual picker may scan the bin 610 and/or the product unit after placement, which may provide to the warehouse control system 104 confirmation of the unit's location. According to various embodiments, manual pickers may initiate the placement process by scanning a product unit. The scan may be received by the product reservation system 102, which may return to the manual picker an indication of a manual serialized product bin 610 where the unit should be placed. The manual picker may subsequently place the unit at the identified bin 61 .
Also, according to various embodiments, serialized product units may be placed at bins 610 according to product turn-over. For example, products having a high turn over may be stored at bins 610 located at about eye-level, for faster picking and placement. Products having lower turn-over may be stored at bins 610 that are higher or lower. According to various embodiments, prior to generating the placement instruction, the product reservation system 102 may determine an expected turn-over rate for a product. For example, products may be classified as "A," "B" and "C," with each category corresponding to a different turnover level. The bin 610 selected by the product reservation system 102 for a given product unit may be determined based on the product turn-over rate (e.g. , the products "A," "B," or "C" classification).
When a specific serialized product unit is to be picked, the product reservation system 102 may identify the bin 610 comprising the product unit. A paper or electronic pick instruction may be generated specifying the bin 610 and the serial identifier ofthe product unit. A manual picker may receive the pick instruction, go to the bin 610, identify the specified product unit at the bin 610, and place the specified product unit on the transport
Figure imgf000033_0001
system 612. When the manual picker is equipped with a scanning device, the picker may scan one or more of the bin 610 and the product unit prior to placing the unit on the transport device 612. This may provide verification to the product reservation system 102 that the correct product unit has been picked and placed on the transport system 612.
Non-serialized product bins 606 may be any kind of inventory bin. Because it is not necessary to match specific non-serialized product units to specific orders, it may be practical to store multiple non-serialized product units in a single bin 606. The non-serialized product units may be placed into and retrieved from bins 606 according to any suitable manual or automated method. When a non-serialized product is needed for an order, the warehouse control system 104 may identify a bin 606 comprising all or a portion of the quantity required. The system 104 may then generate a paper or electronic pick instruction, that is provided to a manual picker. The manual picker may pull a product unit from the identified bin 606 and place the unit on the transport system. In some embodiments, the manual picker may scan the product unit with a scanning device prior to placing it on the transport system 612. This may provide the warehouse control system 104 with verification that a unit of the correct product has been picked. It will be appreciated that non-serialized products may also be picked from bins 606 by a robot or other automated device.
Non-reserved serialized product bins 608 may be any kind of product bins 606 and may store non-reserved serialized products, or serialized products that may not be activated prior to sale. The bins 608 may be managed by the warehouse control system 104 in a manner similar to the non-serialized product bins 606. This is because, like non-serialized product units, non-reserved serialized product units may not need to be specifically matched to a given order. Accordingly, the non-reserved serialized product bins may be configured to comprise any suitable number of product units. The product units may be manually or automatically placed to and picked from the bins 608, for example, in a manner similar to that described with respect to the non-serialized product bins 606. Upon picking for an order, product units may be placed on the transport system 612.
According to various embodiments, the warehouse control system 104 may track product units on the transport system 612. For example, product units on the transport system may comprise a computer-readable identifier that specifies one or both of a product type and a unique serial identifier (e.g. , for serialized product units). Scanners or other sensors for reading the computer-readable identifiers may be positioned at known locations on the transport system 6 12. The scanners may sense the computer readable identifier of each product unit passing by and provide the same to the warehouse control system 104.
The warehouse control system 104 may utilize product unit tracking information to direct the transport system 612 to transport product units corresponding to a given order to a specific packing station 618. For example, the transport system 612 may have various directing devices such as_. for example, movable arms, rollers oriented orthogonal to the track direction, or other mechanical devices for directing product units off of the transport system 612 and towards the specific packing station 61 8. Once received at a packing station 618, the product units corresponding to an order may be manually and/or automatically confirmed, packed into a shipping container, and then placed back on the transport system 612 and directed towards a shipping station. At the shipping station 620, the shipping container may be manually or automatically addressed and appropriate postage or shipping payment information may be affixed thereto. The package may then be provided to a shipping provider for shipment.
It will be appreciated that not all warehouse facilities of the system 100 may comprise all of the inventor)' bin types 602, 606, 608, 10 shown at the warehouse facility 106 in Figure 6. For example, some warehouse facilities may only have one kind of serialized product bins (e.g., manual 610 or robot accessible 602). Some warehouse facilities may lack one or more of the serialized product bins 602, 610, non-serialized product bins 606 or non- reserved serialized product bins 608. For example, it is possible that all products in the inventory may be serialized products (e.g., when serialized products are used for theft prevention). Also, it will be appreciated that some warehouse facilities may include inventory bin types in addition to those shown in Figure 6.
The process of picking product units for an order may generally be referred to fulfilling the order. In various embodiments, however, order fulfillment may encompass more than just unit picking including, for example, shipping, quality control etc. The order fulfillment process may be managed by one or more different components of the system 100. For example, although various actions related to fulfillment are indicated herein to be initialed by the warehouse control system 104 and the product reservation system 102, respectively, it will be appreciated that any of the actions herein may managed by any component of the system 100.
Figure 7 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow 700 that may be executed by the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 to fulfill an order specifying at least one non-serialized product and at least one serialized product stored at a robot-accessible bin 602. At 702, the product reservation system 102 may receive an indication that the order is ready for fulfillment. The fulfillment indication may be received from the product reservation system 102, the ERP system 1 18, and/or the inventory interface system 124. The order may have been con finned by the requesting system 1 14 prior to the fulfillment indication. Accordingly, the order and or the fulfillment indication may specify a first unique product unit (e.g. , by a unique serial identifier). In addition, the order and/or the fulfillment indication may specify at least one of a first non-serialized product.
The product reservation system 102 may, at 704, determine a non-serialized product bin 606 that contains units ofthe non-serialized product specified by the order. At 706, the product reservation system 102 may generate a pick or fulfillment instruction for the non- serialized product. The pick instruction may initiate a manual or automated pick from the identified non-serialized product bin 606. For a manual pick, the fulfillment instruction may be provided in paper or electronic for to a manual picker. The instruction may indicate a unit quantity of the non-serialized product to be picked, as well as the identified bin 606. The manual picker may pick the indicated unit quantity from the bin 606 and place it on the transport system 6 12. For an automated pick, the fulfillment instruction may be provided to a robot or other automated picking device, which may cause the indicated unit quantity from the bin 606 to be placed on the transport system 612. According to various embodiments, the product reservation system 102 or warehouse control system 102 may receive an indication when the indicated quantity of the non-serialized product is placed on the transport system 612. For example, a manual picker may utilize a scanning device to scan the indicated quantity before placing it on the transport system 612. Also, for example, the transport system 612 may comprise one or more sensors for sensing the presence of the indicated quantity of the non-serialized product on the transport system 6 12. The product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 1 04 may, at 708, instruct the transport system 612 to transport the indicated quantity of the serialized product to a selected packing station 618. For example, when the indicated quantity passes within a predetermined proximity of the packing station 61 8, a directing device may be deployed to push the quantity to the packing station 6 18, either collectively or one at a time.
At 7 10, the product reservation system 102 may instruct the robot 108 to retrieve the identified serialized product unit from the robot accessible bins 602. According to various embodiments, the instruction to the robot 108 may indicate the serialized product unit (e.g., by its unique serial identifier). The robot 108 may locate the bin 602 comprising the serialized product unit, pull the serialized product unit from the bin 602 and place it on the transport system 612. In some embodiments, the product reservation system 102 may provide the robot 108 with the bin 602 containing the identified product unit in addition to or instead of its serial identifier. The product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may additionally instruct the transport system 6 12 to move the picked serialized product unit to the packing station 61 8, which may be the same packing station that the non-serialized product was sent to. Subsequently, the warehouse control system 104 may manage the shipping of the order, for example, as described herein. Figures 8.. 9 and 10 illustrate one embodiment o a generalized process flow 800 for fulfilling orders at one or more warehouse facilities 106 that comprise robot accessible bins 602, non-serialized product bins 606, non-reserved serialized product bins 608 and manual serialized product bins 610. It will be appreciated that the process flow 800 may be adapted to handle one or more warehouse facilities 106 that comprise additional bin-types as well as those that contain less than alj of the bin-types 602, 606. 608, 610. For example, to omit a bin-type, the process actions related to the bin-type to be omitted may not be performed. Also, the description of the process flow 800 provided below may indicate that certain actions are performed by manual actors and/or components of the system 100. These are examples only and that various actions of the process flow 800 may alternatively be performed by other components. Also, although certain actions of the process flow 600 are indicated to be performed by specific components of the system 100, it will be appreciated that the functionality described by the process flow 600 may be distributed among components of the system 100 in any suitable way.
Referring now to Figure 8, the product reservation system 102 and/or warehouse control system 104 may receive an order confirmation at 802. The order confirmation may indicate that all or a portion of an order received from the requesting system 1 14 is confirmed and ready to be fulfilled. Receiving the order confirmation may be the equivalent of receiving the order fulfillment indication at 702 above. At 804, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may generate an order fulfillment instruction. The order fulfillment instruction may indicate, for example, all products to be picked for the order, which may include, for example, serialized products, non-serialized products, and/or non-reserved serialized products. The order fulfillment instruction may have a line or entry for each unit of a serialized product specified by the original order. For example, if an order specifies three units of a first serialized product and one unit of a second serialized product, then the order fulfillment instruction may comprise three entries for the first serialized product and one entry for the second serialized product. The order fulfillment
Figure imgf000038_0001
instruction may also comprise a line or entry for non-serialized product and each non- reserved serialized product from the order. Each serialized product unit entry in the order fulfillment instruction may comprise an indication of the unique serial identifier of a product unit associated with the line.
At 806, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may determine if all serialized product unit entries of the order fulfillment instruction are properly associated with a unique product unit (e.g., via a unique serial identifier). If there is a problem with the association between a serialized product unit entry on the order fulfillment instruction and a unique serial identifier, it may be addressed at 808. Addressing such a problem may include, for example, correcting a typographical error, retrieving and adding to the order fulfillment instruction a serial identifier that was originally omitted, reserving a new serialized product item and transmitting its serial identifier to the requesting system 1 14 for activation, etc.
Provided that all serialized product units identified by the order fulfillment instruction are veri fied, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 1 04 may allocate to each order fulfillment instruction entry a bin from which the identified unit or units will be picked. For example, each entry of the order fulfillment instruction may be allocated to an inventory bin 1 10. The allocated bin for an entry may be written to the entry. Serialized product unit entries at the order fulfillment instruction may be allocated to either a robot-accessible bin 602 or a manual serialized product bin 610, depending on the location of the identified unit. Non-serialized product entries may be allocated to non-serialized product bins 606, and non-reserved serialized product entries may be allocated to non-reserved serialized product bins 608. It will be appreciated that non-serialized product entries and non-reserved serialized product entries may be allocated to multiple bins. For example, if a single bin includes fewer units than the quantity indicated by an entry, the entry may be allocated to more than one bin. A record of the allocation may be generated at 812. Also, in some embodiments, the allocation of 8 10 may comprise assigning an order fulfillment instruction entry to a tray for picking. For example, it will be appreciated that, depending on size and other factors, multiple product units may be placed in a single tray for picking and shipping.
At 814, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may derive a packing method for the order fulfillment instruction. The packing method may specify details describing how the products identified by the fulfillment order will be shipped including, for example, the number of cartons into which the order will divided, the product units that will be in each package, the method of shipping, etc. A record of the determined packing method may be generated at 816. Place holder 818 shows how the process flow 800 transitions from the actions shown at Figure 8 to the actions shown at Figure 9.
Figure 9 illustrates one embodiment of a portion 801 of the process flow 800 for picking products identified by the order fulfillment instruction. At 820. the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may determine if a non- robot pick is required to meet the order fulfillment instruction. For example, if the instruction has an entry with a product unit not corresponding to a robot accessible bin 602, then a non- robot pick may be required. Provided that a non-robot pick is required, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may generate a non-robot pick instruction at 822. For example, a portion of the non-robot pick instruction corresponding to manual serialized product bins may be generated by the product reservation system 102, while a portion of the non-robot pick instruction corresponding to non-serialized products or non-reserved serialized products may be generated by the warehouse control system 104 (as illustrated in Figures 4-5). According to various embodiments, multiple non- robot pick instructions may be generated with one corresponding to serialized products and one corresponding to non-serialized and non-reserved serialized products. The non-robot pick instruction may be a paper or electronic indication of each product or product unit having an entry in the order fulfillment instruction that has been allocated to a non-robot inventory bin. According to various embodiments, the non-robot pick instruction may also comprise an assignment of the non-robot product units to one or more trays for picking. The non-robot pick instruction may be displayed to a manual picker at 824.
At 826. the manual picker may obtain a first empty tray. At 828, it may be determined if the non-robot pick instruction recites any non-reserved serialized units assigned to the first tray. If so, the manual picker may perform actions 830, 832, 834, 836, 838 for some or all of the non-reserved serialized product units identified by the non-robot pick instruction. At 830, the manual picker may scan a first non-reserved serialized product-type. For example, each inventory bin may comprise an indication of the product-type stored therein. Scanning the non-reserved serialized product-type may involve scanning this indication on the inventory bin. At 832, the manual picker may scan the inventory bin (e.g. a non-reserved serialized product bin 608) from which the product unit was picked. At 834, the manual picker may indicate the quantity of non-reserved serialized units picked from the bin. At 836, the manual picker may scan the serial identifiers of each picked product unit. All picked product units may be placed in the first tray, which may be scanned at 838. The information scanned at 830, 832, 834 and 838 may be provided to the warehouse control system to verify the accuracy of the pick at 862. If additional non-reserved serialized are indicated by the non-robot pick. instruction as being allocated to the first tray, actions 830, 832, 834, 836 and 838 may be repeated for each additional unit.
At 840, it may be determined if the non-robot pick instruction recites any manual-pick serialized product units assigned to the first tray. If so, actions 842, 844, 846, 848 and 850 may be performed for each recited serialized product unit. At 842, the manual picker may scan the part type corresponding to a first recited serialized product unit. At 844, the manual picker may scan the manual serialized bin 610 indicated by the non-robot pick instruction to contain the identified serialized product unit. At 846, the manual picker may specify the quantity of units to be picked, which will often be one. At 848, the manual picker may scan the serial identifier of the unit. The manual picker may then place the identified serialized product unit in the first tray and scan the first tray at 850. The information obtained at 842, I U05 /8 I 844, 846. 848 and 850 may be provided to the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 to verify the accuracy of the pick at 862. I f the non-robot pick instruction indicates that an additional manual serialized product units are allocated to the first tray, actions 842. 844, 846, 848, 850 may be repeated for each additional unit.
At 852, it may be determined if the non-robot pick instruction recites any non- serialized products. I f so. the manual picker may perform actions 854, 856, 858 and 860 for each product. At 854, the manual picker may scan a product-type identifier for the product. At 856, the manual picker may scan the inventory bin or bins identified by the non-robot pick instruction as including the specified non-serialized product units. At 858, the manual picker may speci fy the quantity of units picked and placed in the first tray. At 860, the manual picker may place the units in the first tray and scan the first tray. Again, the information obtained from the scans at 854, 846, 858, 860 may be provided to the warehouse control system 104 to verify the accuracy of the pick at 862. If the non-robot pick instruction specifies additional non-serialized units to be included in the first tray, actions 854, 856, 858, 860 may be repeated for each additional product.
When all product units assigned by the non-robot pick instruction to the first tray are placed in the first tray, the first tray may be placed on the transport system 612, at 864. After placement on the transport system 612. the first tray may be manually or automatically scanned at 866. This may provide the warehouse control system 104 with an indication of a location of the first tray on the transport system 612. At 868, the warehouse control system 104 may refer to the non-robot pick instruction to pull details describing the scanned tray. If the scanned tray is the first tray associated with the order fulfillment instruction (870), then the warehouse control system 104 may store, at 872, an indication that picking of the order has begun. I f the scanned tray is not the last tray associated with the non-robot pick instruction (874), then an additional empty tray may be pulled at 826 and the process may repeat. If the scanned tray is the last tray associated with the non-robot pick instruction
(874), then the warehouse control system 104 and/or the product reservation system 102 may instruct the robot 108 to retrieve all serialized product units having entries in the order fulfillment instruction that indicate robot accessible bins (e.g.. a robot pick instruction). According to various embodiments, each product unit may be stored at the robot accessible bins in a tray. To retrieve a product unit, the robot 108 may retrieve the associated tray and place it on the transport system. At 882, the warehouse control system 104 may instruct the transport system 612 to direct all of the trays associated with the order fulfillment instruction to one or more packing stations. Circle 884 indicates a transition to a portion of the process flow 800 shown in Figure 10.
Referring back to 820. if the order fulfillment instruction recites only robot picks, then the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may send a robot pick instruction to the robot 108 at 880. The robot 108 may process the robot pick instniclion at 878, and retrieve all product units indicated by the robot pick instruction at 876.
Figure 10 illustrates one embodiment of a portion 803 of the process flow 800 illustrating the packing and shipping of an order. Recall that at 882, all of the trays associated with the order fulfillment instruction were staged at one or more packing stations. At 886, the first tray associated with the order fulfillment instruction may be scanned. The order fulfillment instruction may be retrieved and, in manual embodiments, displayed to a manual packer at 888. At 889, product units may be removed from the first tray one at a time. Actions 892, 894, 896, and 900 may be performed for each non-serialized or non- reserved serialized product and for each serialized product unit in the first tray. At 892, a carton label corresponding to the shipping carton that will contain the product unit may be scanned. At 894, a part-type of the unit may be scanned. At 896,the label may be scanned again. At 898, the quantity of the product may be indicated. At 900, the serial identifier may be scanned {e.g., if the product is serialized). If an additional shipping carton is required, an additional shipping carton label may be generated at 902.
Once all of the units assigned by the order fulfillment instruction to the first carton have been scanned, the first carton may be packed at 904. According to various embodiments, order and/or product item customization may also be performed prior to or during packing. For example, when the product item is a piece of hardware, customization may comprise loading one or more software applications to the hardware. Customization may also comprise the addition of customer entity and/or product specific marketing materials, instructions, etc. The product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may determine if any additional robot trays remain (906). If so, it may be determined if any post-robot picks arc required (912). A post-robot pick may be a pick of an often non-serialized product that may be located in the shipping area. Products for post-robot picking may include, for example, brochures, promotional products, etc. If a post-robot pick is required, it may be performed at 914. The post-robot pick may be processed for packing at actions 892, 894. 896, 898 and 900 as described, if no post-robot pick is necessary' ( 12), or if not all robot trays are completed (906), then the warehouse control system 908 may determine if additional trays from the order fulfillment instruction remain unprocessed (908). I f so, at 910, the next tray may be scanned and then processed as described above.
If no additional trays remain, then the warehouse control system 104 may complete the order at 916. Completing the order may comprise sending an indication to the product reservation system 102 and/or the ERP system 1 18 indicating that the order has been picked and packed. At 91 8. the warehouse control system 104 may cause a packing slip to be printed and affixed to each carton corresponding to the order. Suitable quality assurance actions may be taken at 920. For example, each carton, or a sampling of cartons, may be opened and its contents verified. It will be appreciated that although various actions described with reference to the process flow 800 shown in Figures 8, 9 and 10 are performed by manual pickers, these actions may also be automated, for example, utilizing one or more robots.
Figure 1 1 illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a floor area 1 100 of a warehouse facility 106 comprising a robotic picking line. The floor area 1 100 may comprise robot accessible bin units 1 1 14, 1 1 16. each comprising robot accessible bins. One or more robot arms 1 126 may be positioned and configured to place product units to and pick product units from the robot accessible bins. Although the robot implementation shown in Figure 1 1 comprises robot arms 1 126, it will be appreciated that any suitable automated picking device maybe used. An intake station 1 103 may receive serialized product items to be placed by the robot arms 1 126. The floor area 1 100 may also comprise packing stations 1 1 18 and shipping stations 1 128. An intake product transport system 1 108, an intake transport system 1 1 10, an intermediate transport system 1 1 12 and a outflow transport system 1 122 may collectively make up the transport system 612 for transporting products among the robot -accessible bin units 1 1 14, 1 1 16, packing stations 1 1 18, and shipping stations 1 128. Input stations 1 120 may be positioned proximate the product transport system 1 1 10 and may be configured to receive picked product units from non-robot inventory bins. Operation of the floor area 1 100 may be managed by one or more computer systems. For example, the warehouse control system 104 may generally direct the operation of the floor area 1 100 as described herein above. The operation of the robot arms 1 126 may also be controlled by one or more computer systems. For example, a robot control system 1102 may direct the robot arms 1 126. According to various embodiments, each robot arm 1 126 may comprise an arm-specific computer system 1 104, 1 106, for example, to control fine motions of the arms 1 126
Figure 12 illustrates one embodiment of a portion of the floor area 1 100 showing a robot arm 1 126 in additional detail. A portion of the intermediate transport system 1 1 12 is illustrated running between robot accessible bin units 1 1 16, 1 1 14. The robot arm 1 126 is illustrated with an extendible arm portion 1202 comprising an picking implement (not shown) for picking and placing product units and/or trays comprising product units. The picking implement may be any suitable mechanical device for securing trays and/or product units including, for example, a jaw, a claw, a hand, a magnet, a suction device, etc. The robot arm 1 126 may be translatable along a rail 1204. For example, the robot arm 1 126 may be translatable in the directions of arrows 1208 and 1206. In this way, the robot arm 1 126 may l uun /er ι be capable of reaching robot accessible bins located at different spatial locations within the robot accessible bin units 1 1 16, 1 1 14.
Figure 1 3 illustrates one embodiment of the intake station 1 103 of the floor area 1 100 showing additional details of, for example, the intake product transport system 1 108 and the intake transport system 1 1 10. Figure 14 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow 1400 for inducting product units into the robot accessible bins 602 via the intake station 1 103. 'Hie process flow 1400 is described herein with reference to Figures I I , 12, 13 and 14. Also, as described herein, the actions of the process flow 1 00 are performed by the product reservation system 102. According to various embodiments, however, some or all of the actions of the process flow 1400 may be performed by the warehouse control system 104, one or more of the robot control computer systems 1 102, 1 104, 1 106, etc.
At 1 02, the product reservation system 102 may receive a unique indication of a first tray 1306 on the intake transport system 1 1 10. For example, the indication may be received from an intake sensor 1 308 positioned to scan a bar code or other computer readable tray identifier. The intake sensor 1308, according to various embodiments, may have a field of view directed towards the intake transport 1 1 10 such that the tray 1306 falls within the field of view. The tray 1306 may be manually or automatically placed on the intake transport system 1 1 10. At 1404, the product reservation system 102 may receive an indication of a first serialized product unit 1304 on the product intake transport 1 108. For example, a product sensor 1 1 13 present at a known location on the product intake transport 1 108 may sense (e.g., via a bar code or other computer readable indicator) the unique serial identifier of the serialized product unit 1304. The product sensor 1 1 13, according to various
embodiments, may have a field of view directed towards the product intake transport 1 108 such that the serialized product unit 1304 falls within the field of view. The product reservation system 102 may derive a location of the product unit 1304 on the product intake transport 1 108. for example, based on the reading from the product sensor 1 1 13. Also, according to various embodiments, the product transport system 1 108 may comprise one or I UU-> /6I I more delineated locations 1302. An intake monitoring system 1 1 12 may provide an indication to a manual worker an indication to place the product unit 1304 at the delineated location 1302. The product reservation system 102 may track the location of the unit 1304 based on the known location of the delineated location 1302 and/or based on input from an intake transport system sensor (not shown) positioned to sense a position of the intake transport system 1 108.
At 1406, the product reservation system 102 may associate the first tray 1306 with the first serialized product unit 1304, for example, by storing an association between the unit's unique serial identifier and the unique indication of the first tray 1306. At 1408, the product reservation system 102 may instruct the product transport system 1 108 and the intake transport system 1 1 10 to place the first serialized product unit 1304 into the tray 1306. This process may occur according to any suitable method. For example, as illustrated in Figure 1 3, the product transport system 1 108 may be positioned above the intake transport system 1 1 10. Accordingly, when the unit 1 304 reaches an end of the product transport system 1 108, it may fall into the tray 1306, as shown. Placing the first serialized product unit 1304 into the tray 1 306 may comprise positioning the product transport system 1 108 and the intake transport system 1 1 10 such that the tray 1306 is positioned to catch the unit 1304 at the end of the product transport system ] 108, as illustrated in Figure 13.
At 1410, the product reservation system 102 may instruct the robot to place the tray 1306 (and also the first serialized product unit 1304) at a robot accessible bin. For example, as illustrated in Figure 1 1. after the tray 1306 is placed on the intake transport system 1 1 10, it may be transported to the intermediate transport system 1 1 12, which may take the tray 1306 between the robot accessible bin units 1 1 14, 1 1 16. There, one of the robot arms 1 126 may pick up the tray 1306 and place it at one of the robot accessible locations 602. According to various embodiments, the instruction to the robot may also comprise an indication of the turn-over rate of the product associated with the product 1304 present at the tray 1306. The robot may utilize this infonnation to place the tray 1306 within the robot accessible bins. For example, trays 1306 comprising product units 1304 having a high turn-over may be stored at bins that may be easily accessible by the robot. Trays 1306 comprising product units 1304 having lower turn-over may be stored at bines that are not as quickly or easily accessible. According to various embodiments, product units 1304 may be classified into three categories based on availability. An *'A" category may indicate product units 1304 having the highest turn-over. A ;'B" category may indicate product units 1304 having an intermediate turn-over rate. A "C" category may indicate product units 1304 having a low turn-over rate.
Figure 1 5 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow 1500 for picking, packing and shipping an order specifying a serial product unit. The process flow 1500 is described as being performed by the product reservation system 102. It will be appreciated, however, that some or all of the actions of the process flow 1500 may be performed by other systems including, for example, the warehouse control system 104, the ERP system 1 18, the robot control systems 1 102, 1 104, 1 106, ere. At 1502, the product reservation system 102 may receive and/or generate an order fulfillment instruction. The order fulfillment instruction may comprise an entry for a serial product that specifies the serial identifier of the unit 1304 of the serial product. At 1504, the product reservation system 102 may instruct the robot to retrieve the tray 1306 including the serial product unit 1304. Accordingly, one of the robot arms 1 126 may translate on the rail 1204 to a location corresponding to the inventor)' bin comprising the tray 1306. The robot arm 1 126 may retrieve the tray and place it on the intermediate transport system 1 1 12.
At 1506, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may instruct the transport system 1 1 12 to transport the tray 1306 to a packing station 1 1 18. For example, after being placed in the intermediate transport system 1 1 12, the system 1 1 12 may rotate counter-clockwise (relative to Figure 1 1 ) moving the tray 1306 to the packing stations 1 1 18. When the tray 1306 is adjacent a selected packing station, the intermediate transport system 1 1 12 may deploy a directing device to move divert the tray toward the packing station 1 1 18. The directing device may be, for example, an arm positioned to swing across the intermediate transport system 1 1 12. a set of rollers positioned to roll orthogonal to the direction of motion of the system 1 1 12 and towards the packing station 1 1 18, etc. At 1508, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may receive an indication that an order including the unit 1304 is packed. For example, after the unit 1304 is packed into a carton, the carton may be placed on an outflow transport system 1 122 which may direct the carton towards one or more shipping stations 1 128. Upon receipt of the indication that the unit 1304 is packed for shipping, the product reservation system 102 and/or the warehouse control system 104 may generate a ship instruction at 1 510. The ship instruction may be result in a shipping label being generated and applied to the carton at labeling device 1 124. According to various embodiments, the tray 1306 and unit 1304 may be processed for packing and shipping as described above with respect to the packing portion 803 of the process flow 800 described above.
Different computer systems 100, 102, 104, 1 18, 1 14, 120, 1 102, 1 104, 1 106 are described herein as communicating with one another. It will be appreciated that this communication may take place in any suitable method. For example, according to various embodiments, some or all of the computer systems described herein may be in
communication with one another via a network or networks. The network or networks may operate according to any suitable wired or wireless communication protocol and may utilize any suitable hardware or software. In some embodiments, the network or networks may include, a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, a local area network (LAN), etc.
Although the functions described herein are described in terms of multiple computer systems {e.g., product reservation system 102, warehouse control system 104, enterprise resource planning system 1 18, etc.), it will be appreciated than any of the functionality of these or other systems may be distributed across more or fewer physical computer systems. Also, according to various embodiments, any of the various computer systems herein may be implemented as multiple computer systems. For example, different computer systems may manage different types of inventory bins.
The examples presented herein are intended to illustrate potential and specific implementations of the present invention. It can be appreciated that the examples are intended primarily for purposes of illustration of the invention for those skilled in the art. No particular aspect or aspects of the examples are necessarily intended to limit the scope of the present invention. For example, no particular aspect or aspects of the examples of system architectures, methods or processing structures described. herein are necessarily intended to limit the scope of the invention.
It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the present invention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevant for a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating, for purposes of clarity, other elements. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize, however, that these sorts of focused descriptions would not facilitate a better understanding of the present invention, and therefore, a more detailed description of such elements is not provided herein.
In various embodiments, modules or software can be used to practice certain aspects of the invention. For example, software-as-a-service (SaaS) models or application service provider (ASP) models may be employed as software application delivery models to communicate software applications to clients or other users. Such software applications can be downloaded through an Internet connection, for example, and operated either independently (e.g., downloaded to a laptop or desktop computer system) or through a third- party service provider (e.g., accessed through a third-party web site). In addition, cloud computing techniques may be employed in connection with various embodiments of the invention.
Moreover, the processes associated with the present embodiments may be executed by programmable equipment, such as computers. Software or other sets of instructions that may be employed to cause programmable equipment to execute the processes. The processes may be stored in any storage device, such as, for example, a computer system (non-volatile) memory, an optical disk, magnetic tape, or magnetic disk. Furthermore, some of the processes may be programmed when the computer system is manufactured or via a computer- readable memory medium.
It can also be appreciated that certain process aspects described herein may be performed using instructions stored on a computer-readable memory medium or media that direct a computer or computer system to perform process steps. A computer-readable medium may include, for example, memory devices such as diskettes, compact discs of both read-only and read/write varieties, optical disk drives, and hard disk drives. A computer- readable medium may also include memory storage that may be physical, virtual, permanent, temporary, semi-permanent and/or semi -temporary.
A "computer," "computer system," "host," "engine," or "processor" may be, for example and without limitation, a processor, microcomputer, minicomputer, server, mainframe, laptop, personal data assistant (PDA), wireless e-mail device, cellular phone, pager, processor, fax machine, scanner, or any other programmable device configured to transmit and/or receive data over a network. Computer systems and computer-based devices disclosed herein may include memory for storing certain software applications used in obtaining, processing, and communicating information. It can be appreciated that such memory may be internal or external with respect to operation of the disclosed embodiments. The memory may also include any means for storing software, including a hard disk, an optical disk, floppy disk, ROM (read only memory), RAM (random access memory)* PROM (programmable ROM), EEPROM (electrically erasable PROM) and/or other computer- readable memory media.
In various embodiments of the present invention, a single component may be replaced by multiple components, and multiple components may be replaced by a single component, to perform a given function or functions. Except where such substitution would not be operative to practice embodiments of the present invention, such substitution is within the scope of the present invention. Any of the servers or computer systems described herein, for example, may be replaced by a "server farm" or other grouping of networked servers (e.g., a group of server blades) that are located and configured for cooperative functions. It can be appreciated that a server farm may serve to distribute workload between/among individual components of the farm and may expedite computing processes by harnessing the collective and cooperative power of multiple servers. Such server farms may employ load-balancing software that accomplishes tasks such as. for example, tracking demand for processing power from different machines, prioritizing and scheduling tasks based on network demand, and/or providing backup cont ingency in the event of component failure or reduction in operability.
Various embodiments of the systems and methods described herein may employ one or more electronic computer networks to promote communication among different components, transfer data, or to share resources and information. Such computer networks can be classified according to the hardware and software technology that is used to interconnect the devices in the network, such as optical Fiber, Ethernet, wireless LAN,' HomePNA, power line communication or G.hn. The computer networks may also be embodied as one or more of the following types of networks: local area network (LAN): metropolitan area network (MAN); wide area network (WAN); virtual private network (VPN); storage area network (SAN); or global area network (GAN), among other network varieties.
For example, a WAN computer network may cover a broad area by linking communications across metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries. The network may use routers and/or public communication links. One type of data communication network may cover a relatively broad geographic area (e.g., city-to-city or country-to-country) which uses transmission facilities provided by common carriers, such as telephone service providers. In another example, a GAN computer network may support mobile communications across multiple wireless LANs or satellite networks. In another example, a VPN computer network may include links between nodes carried by open connections or virtual circuits in another network (e.g.. the Internet) instead of by physical wires. The link-layer protocols of the VPN can be tunneled through the other network. One VPN application can promote secure communications through the Internet. The VPN can also be used to separately and securely conduct the traffic of different user communities over an underlying network. The VPN may provide users with the virtual experience of accessing the network through an IP address location other than the actual IP address which connects the access device to the network.
Computer networks may include hardware elements to interconnect network nodes, such as network interface cards (NICs) or Ethernet cards, repeaters, bridges, hubs, switches, routers, and other like components. Such elements may be physically wired for
communication and/or data connections may be provided with microwave links (e.g., IEEE 802.12) or fiber optics, for example. A network card, network adapter or NIC can be designed to allow computers to communicate over the computer network by providing physical access to a network and an addressing system through the use of MAC addresses, for example. A repeater can be embodied as an electronic device that receives and retransmits a communicated signal at a boosted power level to allow the signal to cover a
telecommunication distance with reduced degradation. A network bridge can be configured to connect multiple network segments at the data link layer of a computer network while learning which addresses can be reached through which specific ports of the network. In the network, the bridge may associate a port with an address and then send traffic for that address only to that port. In various embodiments, local bridges may be employed to directly connect local area networks (LANs); remote bridges can be used to create a wide area network
(WAN) link between LANs: and/or, wireless bridges can be used to connect LANs and/or to connect remote stations to LANs.
In various embodiments, a hub may be employed which contains multiple ports. For example, when a data packet arrives at one port of a hub, the packet can be copied unmodified to all ports of the hub for transmission. A network switch or other devices that forward and filter OS1 layer 2 datagrams between ports based on MAC addresses in data packets can also be used. A switch can possess multiple ports, such that most of the network is connected directly to the switch, or another switch that is in turn connected to a switch. The term "switch" can also include routers and bridges, as well as other devices that distribute data traffic by application content (e.g.. a Web URL identifier). Switches may operate at one or more OSI model layers, includin physical, data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end). A device that operates simultaneously at more than one of these layers can be considered a multilayer switch. In certain embodiments, routers or other like networking devices may be used to forward data packets between networks using headers and forwarding tables to determine an optimum path through which to transmit the packets.
As employed herein, an application server may be a server that hosts an API to expose business logic and business processes for use by other applications. Examples of application servers include J2EE or Java EE 5 application servers including WebSphere Application Server. Other examples include WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (IBM), Sybase Enterprise Application Server (Sybase Inc), WebLogic Server (BEA), JBoss (Red Hat), JRun (Adobe Systems), Apache Geronimo (Apache Software Foundation), Oracle OC4J (Oracle Corporation), Sun Java System Application Server (Sun Microsystems), and SAP Netweaver AS (ABAP/Java). Also, application servers may be provided in accordance with the .NET framework, including the Windows Communication Foundation, .NET Remoting, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET among several other components. For example, a Java Server Page (JSP) is a servlet that executes in a web container which is functionally equivalent to CGI scripts. JSPs can be used to create HTML pages by embedding references to the server logic within the page. The application servers may mainly serve web-based applications, while other servers can perform as session initiation protocol servers, for instance, or work with telephony networks. Specifications for enterprise application integration and service-oriented architecture can be designed to connect many different computer network elements. Such specifications include Business Application Programming Interlace, Web Services Interoperability, and Java EE Connector Architecture. Any patent, publication, or other disclosure material, in whole or in part, that is said to be incorporated by reference herein is incorporated herein only to the extent that the incorporated materials does not conflict with existing definitions, statements, or other disclosure material set forth in this disclosure. As such, and to the extent necessary, the disclosure as explicitly set forth herein supersedes any conflicting material incorporated herein by reference. Any material, or portion thereof, that is said to be incorporated by reference herein, but which conflicts with existing definitions, statements, or other disclosure material set forth herein will only be incorporated to the extent that no conflict arises between that incorporated material and the existing disclosure material.
While various embodiments of the invention have been described herein, it should be apparent, however, that various modifications, alterations and adaptations to those embodiments may occur to persons skilled in the art with the attainment of some or all of the advantages of the present invention. The disclosed embodiments are therefore intended to include all such modifications, alterations and adaptations without departing from the scope and spi rit of the present invention as set forth in the appended claims.

Claims

We claim :
1. A system for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
a plurality of robot-accessible bins;
a robot programmed to load product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins and retrieve product units from the plurality of robot-accessible bins;
a data storage system;
a computer system comprising at least one processor and operatively associated electronic storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
instruct the robot to load a plurality of serialized product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins such that each of the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises no more than one serialized product unit;
receive an order specifying a serialized product from a requesting system; receive from the data storage system a serial identifier associated with a first unit of the serialized product that is present at one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins and is indicated at the data storage system as being available;
write to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is reserved; and transmit to the requesting system a message comprising an indication of the order and an indication of the serial identifier.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: receive a second order from a second requesting system, wherein the second order specifies the serialized product;
Figure imgf000056_0001
receive from the data storage system a second serial identifier associated with a second unit of the serialized product that is present at a second one of the plurality of robot- accessible bins and is indicated at the data storage system as being available:
write to the data storage system an indication that the second unit is reserved; and transmit to the second requesting system a message comprising an indication of the second order and an indication of the second serial identifier.
3. The system of claim I , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to, upon receiving a con firmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is confirmed, instruct the robot to retrieve the first unit from the one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins.
4. The system of claim 3, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to, upon receiving the confirmation, transmit an indication of at least the portion of the order corresponding to the first unit to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is confirmed, write to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is confirmed.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is released, write to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is available.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is failed, but not released, write to the data storage an indication that the first unit is quarantined.
8. The system of claim 7, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: receive a verification of the integrity of the first unit; and
write to the data storage an indication that the first unit is available.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to query the data storage system to determine whether the inventory comprises any units of the serialized product.
10. The system of claim 9, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are conditioned upon the inventory comprising at least one unit of the serialized product.
1 1. The system of claim 9, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: determine whether fulfilling the order will cause a customer entity associated with the order to exceed a threshold number of units of the serialized products, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on fulfilling the order not causing the customer entity to exceed the threshold.
12. The system of claim 9, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: determine whether fulfilling the order will cause a the serialized product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on fulfilling the order not causing the serialized product to exceed the sell-through rate.
13. The system of claim 9, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: determine whether a unit quantity of the serialized product indicated by the order exceeds an order quantity threshold associated with the serialized product, wherein the receiving from the data storage system, the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on the unit quantity of the serialized product indicated by the order not exceeding the order quantity threshold.
14. The system of claim 9, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions thai, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to. conditioned upon the inventory not comprising any units of the serialized product, transmit an unavailability message to the requesting system indicating that the serialized product is not available.
15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the order comprises a customer address, and wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to write to the data storage system an instruction to ship the first unit to the customer address.
16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the order is associated with a customer entity.
1 7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: provide to an administrative user an indication of the order, the indication comprising the serial identifier.
18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: receive from an administrative user an instruction to cancel at least a portion of the order;
transmit to the requesting system an indication that the at least a portion of the order is cancelled.
19. The system of claim I , wherein the robot comprises a robot arm.
20. A method for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the method comprising:
instructing a robot to load a plurality of serialized product units to a plurality of robot- accessible bins such that each of the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises no more than one serialized product unit, wherein the robot is programmed to load product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins and retrieve product units from the plurality of robot- accessible bins, and wherein the instructing is by a computer system comprising at least one processor and opcratively associated memory;
receiving, by the computer system and from a requesting system, an order specifying a serialized product;
receiving, by the computer system and from a data storage system, a serial identifier associated with a first unit of the serialized product that is present at one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins and is indicated at the data storage system as being available;
writing, by the computer system, to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is reserved; and
transmitting, by the computer system and to the requesting system, a message comprising an indication of the order and an indication of the serial identifier.
21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:
receiving; by the computer system and from a second requesting system, a second order, wherein the second order specifies the serialized product;
receiving, by the computer system and from the data storage system, a second serial identifier associated with a second unit of the serialized product that is present at a second one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins and is indicated at the data storage system as being available;
writing to the data storage system, by the computer system, an indication that the second unit is reserved; and transmitting, by the computer system and to the second requesting system, a message comprising an indication of the second order and an indication of the second serial identi fier.
22. The method of claim 20, further comprising, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is confirmed, instructing the robot to retrieve the first unit from the one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins.
23. The method of claim 22, further comprising, upon receiving the confirmation, transmitting an indication of at least the portion of the order corresponding to the first unit to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
24. The method of claim 20, further comprising, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is confirmed, writing to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is confirmed.
25. The method of claim 20, further comprising, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is released, writing to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is available.
26. The method of claim 20, further comprising, upon receiving a confirmation indicating that at least a portion of the order corresponding to the first unit is fai led, hut not released, writing to the data storage an indication that the first unit is quarantined.
27. The method of claim 26, further comprising:
receiving a verification of the integrity of the first unit: and
writing to the data storage an indication that the first unit is available. I UUJ /an. I
28. The method of claim 20, further comprising querying the data storage system to determine whether the inventory comprises any units of the serialized product.
29. The method of claim 28, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are conditioned upon the inventory comprising at least one unit of the serialized product.
30. The method of claim 28. further comprising determining, by the computer system, whether fulfilling the order will cause a customer entity associated with the order to exceed a threshold number of units of the serialized products, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on fulfilling the order not causing the customer entity to exceed the threshold.
31 . The method of claim 28, further comprising determining, by the computer system, whether ful filling the order will cause a the serialized product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate, wherein the receiving from the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on fulfilling the order not causing the serialized product to exceed the sell-through rate.
32. The method of claim 28, further comprising determining, by the computer system, whether a unit quantity of the serialized product indicated by the order exceeds an
order quantity threshold associated with the serialized product, wherein the receiving from
the data storage system the serial identifier, writing to the data storage the indication that the
first unit is reserved, and transmitting the message comprising the indication of the order and
the indication of the serial identifier to the requesting system are further conditioned on the
unit quantity of the serialized product indicated by the order not exceeding the order quantity
threshold.
33. The method of claim 20, further comprising, conditioned upon the inventory
noi comprising any units of the serialized product, transmitting an unavailability message to
the requesting system indicating that the serialized product is not available.
34. The method of claim 20, wherein the order comprises a customer address, and
further comprising writing to the data storage system an instruction to ship the first unit to the
customer address.
35. The method of claim 20, wherein the order is associated with a customer
entity. 36. The method of claim 20, further comprising providing, by the computer
system and to an administrative user, an indication of the order, the indication comprising the
serial identifier.
37. The method of claim 20, further comprising:
receiving from an administrative user an instruction to cancel at least a portion of the
order;
62
i i uu3 /ori_ i transmitting to the requesting system an indication that the at least a portion of the order is cancelled.
38. A system for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
a data storage system;
a computer system comprising at least one processor and operatively associated electronic storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
transmit to a requesting system associated with a customer unit an indication of a catalog associated with the customer unit, wherein the catalog indicates a plurality of c products selected from the inventory that are available to the customer unit, and, for each of the plurality of products, a quantity of units available to the customer unit;
receive an order specifying a serial ized product from the requesting system; receive from the data storage system a serial identifier associated with a first unit of the serialized product;
write to the data storage system an indication that the first unit is reserved; and transmit to the requesting system a message comprising an indication of the order and an indication of the serial identifier.
39. The system of claim 38, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
determine the plurality of products indicated by the catalog;
for each of the plurality of products, determine the quantity of units available to the customer unit.
40. The system of claim 39, wherein the determining the plurality of products indicated by the catalog comprises reviewing a sales history of the customer unit.
41 . The system of claim 39, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, the determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit comprises:
determining a customer unit-specific sell-through rate for the product:
determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit at the present time without causing the customer unit-specific sell-through rate to exceeding a threshold sell-through rate for the customer unit.
42. The system of claim 39, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, the determining the quantity of units available to the customer comprises determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit without causing a sell-through rate of the product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate.
43. The system of claim 38, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: verify that the serialized product is indicated by the catalog; and
verify that a unit quantity of the first serialized product indicated by the order does not exceed the quantity of units of the first serialized product available to the customer unit.
44. A method for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
transmitting to a requesting system associated with a customer unit an indication of a catalog associated with the customer unit, wherein the catalog indicates a plurality of products selected from the inventory that are available to the customer unit, and, for each of the plurality of products, a quantity of units available to the customer unit, wherein the transmitting is performed by a computer system comprising at least one processor and associated memory:
receiving, by the computer system, an order specifying a serialized product from the requesting system;
receiving, by the computer system and from the data storage system, a serial identifier associated with a first unit of the serialized product;
writing, by the computer system and to a data storage system, an indication that the first unit is reserved; and
transmitting, by the computer system and to the requesting system, a message comprising an indication of the order and an indication of the serial identifier.
45. The method of claim 44, further comprising:
determining the plurality' of products indicated by the catalog;
for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit.
46. The method of claim 45, wherein the determining the plurality of products indicated by the catalog comprises reviewing a sales history of the customer unit.
47. The method of claim 45, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, the determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit comprises:
determining a customer unit-specific sell-through rate for the product;
determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit at the present time without causing the customer unit-specific sell-through rate to exceeding a threshold sell-through rate for the customer unit.
48. The method of claim 45, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, the determining the quantity of units available to the customer comprises determining how many additional product units may.be sold to the customer unirwithout causing a sell-through rate of the product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate.
49. The method of claim 44, further comprising:
verifying that the serialized product is indicated by the catalog; and
verifying that a unit quantity of the first serialized product indicated by the order does not exceed the quantity of units of the first serialized product available to the customer unit.
50. A system for fulfilling orders from an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
a plurality of robot-accessible bins;
a robot programmed to load product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins and retrieve product units from the plurality of robot-accessible bins;
a plurality of non-reserved product bins containing non-reserved product units; and a computer system comprising at least one processor and operatively associated electronic storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
receive an order;
derive from the order a plurality of products, a unit quantity for each of the plurality of products, and a serial identifier referencing a first product unit of at least one of the plurality of products, and wherein at least one of the plurality of products is a non- reserved product;
determine a first bin selected from the plurality of non-reserved product bins that is associated with product units of the non-reserved product; generate a pick instruction, wherein the pick instruction specifies the first bin and the unit quantity of the non-reserved product specified by the order; and
instruct the robot to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins. 51. The system of claim 50, wherein each of the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises no more than one serialized product unit.
52. The system of claim 50, wherein each of the plurality of non-reserved product bins comprises at least two product units of a common non-serialized product.
53. The system of claim 50, further comprising a packing station and a transport system extending to the plurality of robot-accessible bins, the plurality non-serialized product bins and the packing station. 54. The system of claim 53. wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: instruct the transport system to transport the unit quantity of the non-reserved product identified in the pick instruction to the packing station; and
instruct the transport system to transport the first product unit to the packing station.
55. The system of claim 50. wherein generating the pick instruction comprises at least one of generatin a paper pick instruction and generating an electronic pick instruction.
56. The system of claim 50. wherein instructing the robot to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins comprises providing the robot with the serial identi fier. 57. The system of claim 50, wherein instructing the robot to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins comprises providing the robot with an indication of the one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins that contains the first product unit.
58. The system of claim 50, wherein the computer system comprises:
a warehouse control system programmed to:
determine the first bin selected from the plurality of non-reserved product bins that comprises product units of the non-reserved product; and
generate the pick instruction; and
a product reservation system programmed to:
instruct the robot to retrieve the first product unit from the one of the plurality of robot accessible bins.
The system of claim 50, wherein the robot comprises a robot arm.
60. The system of claim 50. wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system receive an indication that the unit quantity of the non-reserved product has been retrieved from the first bin. 1 . The system of claim 50. wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to receive an indication that the unit quantity of the non-reserved product has been placed on the transport system. 62. The system of claim 50, further comprising a plurality of manual serialized product bins, wherein each of the plurality of manual serialized product bins comprises at least two serialized product units, wherein the order specifies a second serial identifier referencing a second product unit of at least one of the plurality of products, and wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
identify a second bin, selected from the plurality of manual serialized product bins; and
generate a second pick instruction indicating the second product unit, wherein the second pick instruction specifies the second bin and the second serial identifier.
63. The system of claim 62, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to receive an indication that the second product unit has been retrieved from the second bin. 64. The system of claim 50, wherein the non-reserved product bins comprise non- serialized bins comprising non-serialized product units and non-reserved serialized bins comprising non-reserved serialized product units.
65. The system of claim 50, further comprising empty non-reserved product unit bins.
66. A method for fulfilling orders from an inventory comprising serialized products, the method comprising:
receiving an order, by a computer system, wherein the computer system comprises at least one processor and operative associated memory; deriving from the order, by the computer system, a plurality of products, a unit quantity for each of the plurality of products, and a serial identifier referencing a first product unit of at least one of the plurality of products, and wherein at least one of the plurality of products is a non-reserved product;
determining, by the computer system, a first bin selected from a plurality of non- reserved product bins, wherein the first bin is associated with product units of the non- reserved product;
generating, by the computer system, a pick instruction, wherein the pick instruction speci fies the first bin and the unit quantity of the non-reserved product specified by the order; and
instructing a robot, by the computer system, to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins, wherein the robot is programmed to load product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins and retrieve product units from the plurality of robot-accessible bins.
67. The method of claim 66, further comprising:
instructing a transport system to transport the unit quantity of the non-reserved product identified in the pick instruction to a packing station; and
instructing the transport system to transport the first product unit to the packing station.
68. The method of claim 66, wherein generating the pick instruction comprises at least one of generat ing a paper pick instruction and generating an electronic pick instruction.
69. The method of claim 66, wherein instructing the robot to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins comprises providing the robot with the serial identifier.
70. The method of claim 66, wherein instructing the robot to retrieve the first product unit from one of the plurality of robot accessible bins comprises providing the robot with an indication of the one of the plurality of robot-accessible bins that contains the first product unit.
71 . The method of claim 66, further comprising receiving, by the computer system, an indication that the unit quantity of the non-reserved product has been retrieved from the first bin. 72. The method of claim 66, further comprising receiving, by the computer system, an indication that the unit quantity of the non-reserved product has been placed on the transport method.
73. The method of claim 66, further comprising
deriving, by the computer system, from the order a second serial identifier referencing a second product unit of at least one of the plurality of products;
identifying, by the computer system, a second bin selected from a plurality of manual serialized product bins; and
generating, by the computer system, a second pick instruction indicating the second product unit, wherein the second pick instruction specifies the second bin and the second serial identifier.
74. The method of claim 66, wherein the non-reserved product is at least one of a non-serialized product and a non-reserved serialized product. I UU57SHJ I
75. A system for fulfilling orders from an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
a plurality of serialized product bins, wherein each of the plurality of serialized product bins comprises at least one serialized product unit;
a plurality of non-reserved product bins containing non-reserved product units; a computer system comprising at least one processor and operatively associated electronic storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
transmit to a requesting system associated with a customer unit an indication of a catalog associated with the customer unit, wherein the catalog indicates a plurality of products selected from the inventory that are available to the customer unit, and, for each of the plurality of products, a quantity of units available to the customer unit;
receive an order from the requesting system;
derive from the order a plurality of products, a unit quantity for each of the plurality of products, and a serial identifier referencing a first product unit of a serialized product unit selected from the plurality o products, and wherein at least one of the plurality of products is a non-reserved product ;
determine a first bin selected from the plurality of serialized product bins that contains the first product unit;
generate a first pick instruction, wherein the first pick instruction specifies the first bin and the serial identifier;
determine a second bin selected from the plurality of non-reserved product bins that is associated with product units of the non-reserved product; and
generate a second pick instruction, wherein the second pick instruction specifics the second bin and the unit quantity of the non-reserved product specified by the order.
76. The system of claim 75, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
determine the plurality of products indicated by the catalog; for each of the plurality of products, determine the quantity of units avai lable to the customer unit.
77. The system of claim 76. wherein determining the plurality of products indicated by the catalog comprises reviewing a sales history of the customer unit.
78. The system of claim 76, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit comprises:
determining a customer unit-specific sell-through rate for the product;
determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit without causing the customer unit-specific sell-through rate to exceeding a threshold sell- through rate for the customer unit.
79. The system of claim 76, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer comprises determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit without causing a sell-through rate of the product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate.
80. The system of claim 75, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: associate the serial identifier with the first bin;
generate a placement instruction indicating the serial identifier and the first bin. 8 ) . The system of claim 80, wherein the placement instruction is at least one of a paper placement instruction and an electronic placement instruction.
82. The system of claim 80, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to receive an indication that the first product unit has been placed at the first bin.
83. The system of claim 80, wherein associating the serial identifier with the first bin further comprises:
determining a turn-over rate of the serialized product unit;
select the first bin considering the turn-over rale of the serialized product unit.
84. The system of claim 75, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to: veri fy that the plurality of products are indicated by the catalog; and
verify that the unit quantity of the first serialized product indicated by the order does not exceed the quantity of units of the first serialized product available to the customer unit.
85. A method for fulfilling orders from an inventory comprising serialized products, the method comprising:
transmitting to a requesting system associated with a customer unit an indication of a catalog associated with the customer unit, wherein the catalog indicates a plurality of products selected from the inventory that are available to the customer unit, and, for each of the plurality of products, a quantity of units available to the customer unit, wherein the transmitting is by a computer system comprising a processor and associated memory;
receiving, by the computer system, an order from the requesting system; I uu-> / orv_ I deriving, by ihe computer system, from the order a plurality of products, a unit quantity for each of the plurality of products, and a serial identifier referencing a first product unit of a serialized product unit selected from the plurality of products, and wherein at least one of the plurality of products is a non-reserved product;
determining, by the computer system, a first bin selected from a plurality of serialized product bins that contains the first product unit;
generating, by the computer system, a First pick instruction, wherein the first pick instruction specifies the first bin and the serial identifier;
determining, by the computer system, a second bin selected from a plurality of non- reserved product bins that is assoc iated with product units of the non-reserved product; and generating, by the computer system, a second pick instruction, wherein the second pick instruction specifies the second bin and the unit quantity of the non-reserved product specified by the order.
86. The method of claim 85, further comprising:
determining the plurality of products indicated by the catalog;
for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit.
87. The method of claim 86, wherein determining the plurality of products indicated by the catalog comprises reviewing a sales history of the customer unit.
88. The method of claim 86, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer unit comprises:
determining a customer unit-specific sell-through rate for the product;
Figure imgf000077_0001
determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit without causing the customer unit-specific sell-through rate to exceeding a threshold sell- through rate for the customer unit.
89. The method of claim 86, wherein, for each of the plurality of products, determining the quantity of units available to the customer comprises determining how many additional product units may be sold to the customer unit without causing a sell-through rate of the product to exceed a threshold sell-through rate.
90. The method of claim 85, further comprising:
associating the serial identifier with the first bin; and
generating a placement instruction indicating the serial identifier and the first bin.
91. The method of c laim 90, wherein the placement instruction is at least one of a paper placement instruction and an electronic placement instruction.
92. The method of claim 90, further comprising receiving an indication that the first product unit has been placed at the first bin.
93. The method of claim 90, wherein associating the serial identi fier with the first bin further comprises:
determining a turn-over rate of the serialized product unit;
select the first bin considering the turn-over rate of the serialized product unit.
94. The method of claim 85, further comprising:
verifying that the plural ity of products are indicated by the catalog; and verifying that the unit quantity of the first serialized product indicated by the order does not exceed the quantity of units of the first serialized product available to the customer unit.
95. A system for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the system comprising:
an intake station, wherein the intake station comprises:
a product transport system;
an intake transport system; and
an intake sensor having a field-of-view directed towards the intake transport system and positioned such that items on the intake transport system fall within the field-of- view;
a plurality of robot-accessible bins;
a robot programmed to load product units to the plurality of robot-accessible bins; and a computer system comprising at least one processor and operatively associated electronic storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
receive from the intake sensor a first tray identifier describing a first tray present on the intake transport system;
associate the first tray identifier with a first serial identifier of a first product unit of a first serialized product, wherein the first product unit is present on the product transport system;
instruct the product transport system to transport the first product unit to the first tray; and
instruct the robot to place the first tray containing the first product unit at a first bin selected from the plurality of robot-accessible bins.
96. The system of claim 95, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to derive a position of the first product unit on the product transport system.
97. The system of claim 96, wherein the product transport system comprises a plurality of delineated locations, and wherein deriving the position of the First product unit on the product transport system comprises:
receiving data indicating that a first delineated location of the product transport system comprises a product unit having the first serial identifier; and
receiving data indicating a position of the first delineated location.
98. The system of claim 96, further comprising a product sensor having a field-of- view directed towards the product transport system and positioned such that items at a first position on the product transport system fall within the field-of-view, and wherein deriving the position of the first product unit on the product transport system comprises receiving from the product sensor data describing the first serial identifier.
99. The system of claim 95, further comprising an outflow transport system and a packing station, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to:
receive a pick instruction specifying the first serial identifier;
instruct the robot to retrieve the first tray unit from the first robot-accessible bin and place it on the outflow transport system, wherein the outflow transport system transports the first product unit to the packing station.
100. The system of claim 99, wherein the electronic storage further comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer system to
instruct the outflow transport system to direct the first product unit to the packing station.
101 . The system of claim 99, further comprising a packing station, wherein the pick
insiniction also specifies a non-serialized product, and wherein the electronic storage further
comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computer
system to:
receive, a second tray identifier describing a second tray associated with at least one
item of the non-serialized product;
receive an indication that the second tray is present on the outflow transport system;
instinct the outflow transport system to transport the second tray to the packing
station.
102. The system of claim 99, wherein the intake transport system and the outflow
transport system are components of a common transport system.
103. The system of claim 99, wherein the outflow transport system comprises at
least one conveyor. 1 4. The system of claim 95. wherein each of the first plurality of robot-accessible
bins comprises no more than one serialized product unit.
105. The system of claim 95, wherein the product transport system is positioned
above the intake transport system, and wherein transporting the first product unit to the first
tray comprises dropping the first product unit from the product transport system to the tray on
the intake transport system.
79
!
106. The system of claim 95, wherein the intake transport system comprises at least one conveyor.
107. The system of claim 95, wherein instructing the robot to place the first tray containing the first product unit at a first bin selected from the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises providing the robot with an indication of a turn-over rate of the first serialized product.
108. A method for managing an inventory comprising serialized products, the method comprising:
receiving, by a computer system and from an intake sensor a first tray identi fier describing a first tray present on an intake transport system, wherein the computer system comprises at least one processor and operatively associated memory;
associating, by the computer system, the first tray identifier with a first serial identifier of a first product unit of a first serialized product., wherein the first product unit is present on the product transport system;
instructing the product transport system, by the computer system, to transport the first product unit to the first tray; and
instructing a robot, by the computer system, to place the first tray containing the first product unit at a first bin selected from a plurality of robot-accessible bins.
109. The method of claim 108, further comprising deriving, by the computer system, a position of the first product unit on the product transport system.
1 10. The method of claim 109, wherein the product transport system comprises a plurality of delineated locations, and wherein deriving the position of the first product unit on the product transport system comprises:
receiving data indicating that a first delineated location of the product transport system comprises a product unit having the first serial identifier; and
receiving data indicating a position of the first delineated location.
1 1 1 . The method of claim 1 10. further comprising receiving, by the computer system and from a product sensor data describing the first serial identifier.
1 12. The method of claim 108, further comprising:
receiving, by the computer system, a pick instruction specifying the first serial identifier;
instructing the robot to retrieve the first tray unit from the first robot-accessible bin and place it on an outflow transport system, wherein the outflow transport system transports the first product unit to a packing station.
1 13. The method of claim 1 12, further comprising instructing the outflow transport system, by the computer system, to direct the first product unit to the packing station.
1 14. The method of claim 1 12. wherein the pick instruction also specifies a non- serialized product, and further comprising:
receiving, by the computer system, a second tray identifier describing a second tray associated with at least one item of the non-serialized product;
receiving, by the computer system, an indication that the second tray is present on the outflow transport system; instructing the outflow transport system, by the computer system, to transport the second tray to the packing station.
1 15. The method of claim 108, wherein instructing the robot to place the first iray containing the first product unit at a first bin selected from the plurality of robot-accessible bins comprises providing the robot with an indication of a turn-over rate of the first serialized product .
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US12/848,806 US20120030070A1 (en) 2010-08-02 2010-08-02 Managing an inventory comprising serialized products
US12/848,815 2010-08-02
US12/848,811 2010-08-02
US12/848,815 US8571700B2 (en) 2010-08-02 2010-08-02 Robotic picking line for serialized products
US12/848,811 US8812147B2 (en) 2010-08-02 2010-08-02 Fulfilling orders for serialized products
US12/848,806 2010-08-02

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