Over the years, the contact lens business has evolved in a variety of ways resulting in an industry standard manner of providing new lenses to customers. This is particularly true in the circumstance of new contact lens customers. That is, a customer may be seeking contact lenses for the first time after having previously been an exclusive glasses wearer or a person not utilizing corrective lenses at all. Alternatively, a customer may be in need of a new contact lens prescription, whether due to a natural need for an increase in power or for sake of addressing newly emerging vision issues.
In either circumstance, such a customer at an eye care professional (ECP) facility is likely to be provided with a “trial pack” of contact lenses. In this way, the customer is able to leave the ECP facility with a set of contact lenses that may be safely utilized for a brief period, perhaps a week. Presuming there are no issues after the initial trial period, the new customer may order new daily or extended wear lenses to cover a period well beyond the initial trial period. Of course, should issues emerge, the new customer may revisit the ECP for different sizes and/or powers, or even alternative contact lens brand and type options.
In the above-described scenario, the standard business custom of providing trial packs of contact lenses is dependent upon the brands and types of trial packs available to the ECP at the office. More specifically, it is likely that a skilled administrative member of the ECP staff will obtain a new contact lens prescription from the ECP during the customer visit and revert to an available set of trial packs. For example, different companies may provide the ECP with an array of trial packs of varying types, powers, etc. The ECP or ECP administrator may take a quick look at the different arrays to determine which company brand has an available trial pack for the newly provided prescription. A brand with the available trial set for the prescription may be the brand that is provided to the customer. Depending on how the trial period goes for the customer, this may end up being the long-term or even permanent brand selection for the customer for years to come. The particular brand selected may be a matter of happenstance or the brand selected may be the last available trial set of any of the potential brands at the ECP office.
Of course, the administrator and the ECP may desire that there be a sufficient supply of trial packs of all types available from a variety of company providers. However, as a practical matter, there presently is no user-friendly manner for the administrator to track available and unavailable trial packs of all types and prescriptions from all company brands that are supplied to the ECP office. Generally speaking, corporate brands of trial packs are supplied to the ECP office as a courtesy. As any given type of trial packs from a given company are depleted, replenishment of the brand and type requires that the administrator notice the absence of the brand and type and manually place a new order for trial packs with the supplier company.
Often times, reordering of a particular brand and type of trial packs depends on how many other brands of the sought prescription and type of trial packs remain available. That is, if a given prescription for a certain type of trial pack is available in all brands except for one, the likelihood is that the administrator will attend to other tasks as a priority over replenishing the one brand that has been depleted. Unfortunately, this means that potential customer and/or ECP brand preferences generally take a back seat to administrator task time and random happenstance.
Possibly even more concerning is the fact that replenishment of any given prescription and type for all potential brands may fall subject to a false sense of security for the administrator. For example, the administrator may pull a trial pack for a given prescription and type from a given brand array and notice that it is the last available trial pack for that brand in the noted type and prescription. However, the belief that there are other likely to be other such trial packs available in other brand arrays may be a factor in the administrator failing to reorder trial packs for the depleted brand. This is unfortunate when the belief turns out to be wrong. This may be the case due to the administrator's failed memory, the depletion of other brand trial packs by other administrators or a host of other human factors.
As an alternative, every brand of trial pack arrays may be outfitted with automated tracking sensors and other high cost features to automatically alert administrators of all trial pack supplies in real-time. Of course, this may not be cost-effective given the relatively inexpensive cost of any given disposable trial pack. Thus, as a practical matter, the customer and ECP may be faced with utilizing whatever trial packs remain available regardless of preference. Indeed, there generally remains the realistic possibility of the customer leaving the ECP with no trial pack at all due to other administrator priorities.
A user-friendly system for identifying an absence of any contact fitting lens of a given type in a plurality of fitting lenses is provided. The system includes a modular fitting set assembly that has a plurality of individual compartment locations, each to accommodate one of the given type of lenses of the plurality. Further, the system also includes a plurality of indicators with an indicator at each compartment location. When activated, each indicator may automatically provide an indication of the absence of a given fitting lens type at the corresponding locations upon the emergence of such absence. The system also includes hardware such as to accommodate a smartphone application. The application may image a visible front of the modular fitting set assembly to provide a user-friendly image of indicated fitting lens types absent from the assembly.
In the following description, numerous details are set forth to provide an understanding of the present disclosure. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the embodiments described may be practiced without these particular details. Further, numerous variations or modifications may be employed which remain contemplated by the embodiments as specifically described.
Embodiments are described with reference to certain types of systems with exemplary modular fitting set assemblies in the field of contact lenses. In particular, a three tiered modular system is illustrated which accommodates a host of known fitting set lenses of known size, prescription, type and layout. Specifically, a sixty unit fitting set as illustrated in
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As illustrated in
Of course, the indicator 110 may be a variety of indicator types. That is, there is no requirement of a drop-down door as specifically described herein. Once more, the term “visual” is meant to infer that the indicator is visual to hardware and applications thereof such as a camera function on a smartphone 400 as illustrated in
Continuing with reference to
It is also worth noting that, apart from space availability, there is no particular requirement as to the number of packages 175 that are initially available at each compartment 125. For example, all compartments 125 may include a single trial package 175. Alternatively, all compartments 125 may include multiple packages 175 or merely those that are more frequently used may be in multiples, depending on prescription, size and other historical user data. When provided in multiples, the compartments 125 may be equipped with a spring advancing or other suitable advancement aid to ensure that any package 175 is visible and manually accessible so long as the compartment 125 is not empty. Regardless, the user-friendly system detailed below is of benefit so long as a visual indicator of package 175 absence at any compartment location is automatically made available.
Referring now to
Continuing with reference to
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It is worth noting that the visual indicator “−0.75” is user friendly, for example, to the ECP administrator utilizing the assembly 100 of
As a brief aside,
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Continuing with reference to
With the image of the front of the assembly 100 captured by the smartphone 400, an order may be placed as confirmed by the appearance of a confirmation display 495. Notice that the images of the assembly 100 illustrated at 480 and 490 do not include reference to indicia at any drop-down door indicator 110. In these figures, this is merely a result of a smaller exemplary depiction of the assembly 100 of
Employing the described techniques for trial pack order replenishment achieves multiple advantages. For example, from the standpoint of the staff member, utilizing an automatic application to facilitate replenishment not only reduces the likelihood of human error in placing the order but also substantially reduces the time spent by the staff member in placing the order in the first place. As a result, staff member time may be better utilized on other tasks where such automation is not available. This may have several positive business implications. For example, not only is the staff member's time better optimized, it also means that, given the option of a variety of provider brands, the provider employing a system as described herein may be more likely to remain fully stocked with trial packs. This may inherently lead to additional downstream business benefits to the provider over the long term.
Referring now to
With the compartment location and lens information stored for all locations, a display of an indicator may present whenever a given compartment location is emptied of all trial pack lenses (see 550). Thus, recording all assembly locations as noted at 570 provides a recording of all stocked and emptied compartment locations in an instant. For example, in the embodiments described above, an image of the front of the assembly with door indicators presented for emptied compartments only may be a sufficient recording. That is, submitting this image to the provider as indicated at 590 may be sufficient for automated replenishment of the emptied compartments with trial pack contact lenses.
Notice that the above detailed technique for replenishment may be attained without the requirement of sophisticated electronics or sensors. A simple assembly image with a conventionally available smartphone may be sufficient to attain automated replenishment. By the same token however, more sophisticated advantages may be available. For example, an application of the smartphone or computations by the provider may take account of historical replenishment activity. This may be beneficial to the ECP and the provider, for example, in stocking the assembly at the outset, establishing replenishment predictors, tailoring future orders, informing the supply chain or any number of other added benefits.
Embodiments described hereinabove include a system and techniques for tracking the depletion of trial pack lenses at an ECP in a manner that is user friendly. Further, these techniques do not require a complex, sophisticated or expensive tracking system with sensors incorporated into depleting or remaining products. Rather, the system takes advantage of the readily available tools of visual appearances, smartphones and messaging to minimize administrative staff work and attain replenishment in a near complete automated manner.
The preceding description has been presented with reference to presently preferred embodiments. However, other embodiments and/or features of the embodiments disclosed but not detailed hereinabove may be employed. Furthermore, persons skilled in the art and technology to which these embodiments pertain will appreciate that still other alterations and changes in the described structures and methods of operation may be practiced without meaningfully departing from the principle and scope of these embodiments. Additionally, the foregoing description should not be read as pertaining only to the precise structures described and shown in the accompanying drawings, but rather should be read as consistent with and as support for the following claims, which are to have their fullest and fairest scope.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62976769 | Feb 2020 | US |