METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR MONITORING ON-SHELF INVENTORY AND DETECTING OUT OF STOCK EVENTS

• Main Authors: Jones, Matthew A, Terlecky, Peter M, Michaelsamy, Britto J, Gupta, Kshitiz, Wu, Tirui, Arnold, Mirko A, Chandan, Kumar, Sirotkovic, Jadran, Alvi, Asim S, Cook, Jody P, Kala, Rahul S, Yardley, Maxwell A, Kim, Sung H, Jescheling, Christopher R
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 08.06.2023
• 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

Methods and systems for managing inventory at a retail facility include an image capture device having a field of view that includes a product display shelf of the retail facility, an electronic database that stores defined product display areas and assigned unique identifiers of the products on the product display shelves, and a computing device. The computing device obtains an image of a product display shelf, detects the individual packages of the different products captured in the image, identifies the products associated with the packages detected in the image by utilizing reference information stored in the database, determines whether one or more of the products on the product display shelf is associated with an out of stock event, and transmits an out of stock alert to an electronic device of a worker at the retail facility, notifying the worker to replenish the depleted products on the product display shelf.