Order Fulfillment System

• Main Authors: Simor, Andrew, Rajprasad, Dhivya, de las Heras, Ignacio, Walsh, Ekaterina O, L'Orange, Kirsten, de Santos Sierra, Alberto, DiCesari, Louis, Modi, Navikkumar, Balakrishnan, Darsh
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 05.01.2023
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; PHYSICS; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

An order fulfillment system receives electronic or online orders from customers and fulfills these by selecting from facilities such as retail stores and distribution centers to ship the items to complete the orders. The system determines which facility to ship from by maximizing profitability and minimizing split shipments. The system allocates orders to facilities while considering margin and preventing excessive numbers of split shipments, which reduces margin due to shipping costs. Further, the system can allocate products that are on promotion (e.g., markdown) or approaching promotion in a retail store to an online order, thus increasing margins. The system can help prevent the buildup of inventory gluts of unproductive products within a store. The system includes a profitability forecast component and in particular, can predict of the future selling price by location or channel, or a combination.