Previous inventory systems have been used to help determine how many items a store should order. Such systems have historically manually determined the number of products in a store's stock. For example, the products may be manually counted. In the past, stores were forced to “close for inventory”, to allow the products to be counted in this way.
Modern technology has facilitated the inventory process. For example, RFID technology enables electronic inventory taking of pallets to obtain part numbers, date of origin, expiration date and the like. Barcodes have also been used for inventory.
The present application describes techniques of automated and substantially real-time inventory control that enables determining amounts and numbers of products.
An aspect takes advantage of this real time inventory control to allow monitoring of dispensed items, as an employee theft deterrent mechanism.
In the drawings:
An embodiment described herein teaches an automated inventory system which maintains real-time control over inventoried items to enable more direct real-time monitoring and control over these inventoried items. According to embodiments, the real-time inventory can be used to monitor in real time the dispensing of materials, such as prescription drugs and alcohol.
The inventors recognized a significant issue which has occurred in distribution systems, of a type which are used for portion distribution from a bulk source. Examples of this kind of distribution system include alcohol distribution (e.g., from bars) and prescription drugs.
In a cash business like a bar, employees may give away free drinks, for example, for themselves or for others. The employees may also take in cash. Unscrupulous employees may put the cash in their pocket, rather than in the cash register. An analogous problem can occur in other businesses such as pharmaceutical supply, and can also occur even when the patron is using a payment form other than cash.
The supply companies want to know if a drug is selling out, in order to allow reordering the drug. In addition, however, places where the drugs are dispensed become easy prey for employees to steal the drugs and sell the drugs. In fact, it is believed that drug theft by hospital and drug store employees may account for as much as 48% of all missing and unaccounted for drug inventory discrepancies. The inventors also recognized that manual techniques of maintaining inventory may take months before they turn up any discrepancies, and even once the discrepancy is determined, there is no easy way to determine which employee was responsible for those discrepancies.
The inventors discovered this problem, and a solution to this problem via computer based real time inventory monitoring. The inventors believe that no one has ever realized this unexpected use and advantage of a real time monitoring system. According to an embodiment, a weight pad 100 is used with an embedded electronic weighing device. The inventoried item is shown here as a prescription bottle 102. The inventoried item could alternatively be for example a liquor bottle, in which case an electronic signal indicative of the weight of the bottle is produced as 105. Multiple different signals are produced, and
The personal computer monitors the weights of the items on the weight pad 100. For example, dispensed pills which are used may be relatively light. The pad must be sufficiently sensitive to allow detection of weight reduction by the weight of the pills, e.g., 1 mg of pill weight reduction may represent that one pill has been dispensed.
In the embodiment, the personal computer 120 weighs the inventoried item 102 and maintains a running weight. The PC 120 also maintains a list of weights of the different pills; for example if the prescription bottle 102 is Valium, then the PC 120 knows the weight of each Valium pill. Each time a bottle 102 is removed from the scale 100, its weight before and after removal is received by the computer. The computer 120 then produces an indication of the number of pills that were removed, in this way.
A similar technique can be used for sale and dispensing of alcoholic beverages. A manager or owner can determine electronically if the employees are reporting the daily drinks that are served, and at the same time maintaining information indicative of when they need to obtain additional stock.
In operation, and as shown and explained with reference to the flowchart of
When the bottle 102 is removed from the pad, the weight just before the removal is stored as a “before” weight. The time of removal is also logged. When the bottle is replaced, the newly obtained weight is stored as the “after” weight. The weights measured may be milligrams in case of pills, and weight per ounce of liquor, for example.
The difference between the “before weight” and the “after weight” is divided by the weight of the pills, and the determination is made of how many pills were removed from the bottle. The number of removed pills is stored along with a time of removal, and information indicative of which scale/bottle the pills were removed from.
When the bottle is either empty or almost empty, another monitoring flag is produced, that alerts the owner that it is time to replace the bottle.
The scale can also have a reset button such as 101 which is pressed to signal to the computer that a new bottle has been placed on the pad. In operation, it may be typical for the same size and type of drug or liquor to always be placed on the same pad. However, the pressing of the reset button may be used to signal a full bottle, and may request a re-calibration.
In one embodiment, the weight pads can be connected in a daisy chain series connection, and may include addressable parts, so that the pads can respond to electronic interrogations. Any pad that does not respond to an electronic interrogation may be marked as being in a fault condition.
The weight pad may be formed by any electronic scale item, including, for example, a strain gauge, or a system that uses concentric dielectric materials and tests the strain and condition between those materials. The weight is proportional to the pressure caused on the series of metal cylinders.
In the embodiment, the inventoried item 502 includes a proximity tag 505, which can be an RF ID tag or other, associated therewith. The proximity tag indicates certain information about the monitored bottle. The proximity device may store the name and type of the prescription drug, individual weight of pill, the lot number or manufacturer identification code, as well as other information. The proximity tag 505 may include a unique identifier that can be recognized by the computer, such as an inventory number. The inventory number could relate to a database, from which information can be looked up. For example, an inventory number “XZA33” could be stored in a database to represent a bottle of 500 valium, 1 mg each. The tag can alternatively include the information itself such as a unit indication, e.g. “1 mg per pill”.
The proximity tag may be attached to the bottle by a robust adhesive such as epoxy.
In the embodiment, the weighing pad 510 includes structure for reading the proximity information on the tag 505, as well as weighing the bottle. Based on the information in the proximity tag and the weight, a microprocessor unit 515 within the weighing pad 510 may automatically calculate how many pills remain in the bottle 502, or in the alternative embodiment, how much alcohol remains in the bottle. As an alternative, the computer 550 may make this calculation.
As in the first embodiment, the number of pills remaining may be recalculated each time that the bottle is removed from the pad and a master inventory control list is updated to indicate the removed parts.
An embodiment may use a paper receipt detecting system that prints a paper receipt each time there is a reduction in the number of pills, along with a time that this occurred. The printer, shown as 520, may be compared with the cash register receipt at each time of input. Discrepancies in the number of pills, as compared with the received payment, forms an alert.
The alert uses an electronic marker time and date stamp. Based on this alert, information indicative of the person who is handling either or both of the pills or the money is ascertained. In an embodiment, a wireless video camera 525 may continually monitor the proximity of the weighing pad 510. When an alert is caused, the time of the obtained video during which the alert occurred, is either marked or separately transferred to the server. Since the video camera is wireless, the wireless camera interface 530 can send information indicative of the received wireless information to the server computer 550.
This system produces not only determination of when items are being pilfered via inventory control, but also enables determination of the most-likely culprits for having violated the inventory control. For example, whenever more than the desired number of pills have been removed, that is whenever more pills are removed than are actually accounted for, the image obtained wirelessly from the video camera can be used to determine who did the bad act.
Similar techniques can be used for monitoring the dispensing of alcohol. The sale and dispensing of the alcoholic beverages can be coordinated with cash receipts at the end of a period matched to the amount of alcohol that has been served. An absentee bar owner, for example, can thus determine how many free drinks are being given out, and can use the video information to determine who is giving them out, and optionally view that person's behavior during the time of giving them out.
As shown in
The device may also include its own internal ROM 514 controlling its actions, as well as a microprocessor 515. The module 512, e.g., a Bluetooth module, may have a separate antenna 516. This may transmit to a Bluetooth wireless interface 531, which itself may receive the transmissions from a number of the different weighing pads 510.
As in the above embodiments, the weighing pads 510 are being continuously monitored to determine that they are operating correctly. When correctly operating, the weighing pads light blue LEDs, to indicate normal operations. When not operating properly, the weighing pad displays all red LEDs. The red LEDs may also be used to display an indication that the proximity tag 505 is not being properly read, or that the weight is inconsistent with what it should be, or that there is no item at all on the weighing pad. In this way, someone looking at the system can determine at a glance if the bottles are not properly placed on the pads or if the pads are malfunctioning.
The embodiments may operate according to the flowchart of
At 615, the item is placed back on the pad, the weight is detected, and the time, date and weight is also recorded. 620 illustrates that the video images associated with this event, that is between the beginning time and the ending time, are also noted. These video images may be stored as a bookmark location, or may be separately transferred to the computer as part of the event.
At 625, based on the known weight of the items, the weight reduction is converted into the number of items which were sold. 630 indicates the printing of a receipt at 520, indicating that 30 Vicodin tablets have been sold, and the proper amount that should be taken in at the cash register when 30 Vicodin tablets are sold. In an embodiment, an electronic cash register may be used. The cash register is polled at 635 to determine if 30 Vicodins have been paid for. If the cash register entry matches the weight reduction entry, then the event is set as normal at 640, and the video recording may be deleted.
645 indicates an update to the master inventory list to indicate that 30 Vicodin were sold, and 650 thereafter ends the session.
However, 636 indicates a situation where the entry on the cash register does not match the entry on the weight reduction, meaning that the event is declared as not being normal at 637. At 638, the video recording is marked for later review. An inventory update may also be carried out at 639, to list the actual number of items that have been removed.
The system may print out or otherwise maintain an error indicative of the information. For example, a printer may print an indication of error, date, percentage difference, time, location on the video real, and it dollar amount of discrepancy.
An embodiment shown in
In an embodiment, the wireless network 530 may be via a Zigbee connection or some other wireless system that operates as a point to point repeating system. Alternately, any other wireless protocol described above can be used.
Another embodiment, shown in
The embodiment shown in
The general structure and techniques, and more specific embodiments which can be used to effect different ways of carrying out the more general goals are described herein.
Although only a few embodiments have been disclosed in detail above, other embodiments are possible and the inventors intend these to be encompassed within this specification. The specification describes specific examples to accomplish a more general goal that may be accomplished in another way. This disclosure is intended to be exemplary, and the claims are intended to cover any modification or alternative which might be predictable to a person having ordinary skill in the art. For example, other data formats, other kinds of scales, etc, may be used.
Also, the inventors intend that only those claims which use the words “means for” are intended to be interpreted under 35 USC 112, sixth paragraph. Moreover, no limitations from the specification are intended to be read into any claims, unless those limitations are expressly included in the claims. The computers described herein may be any kind of computer, either general purpose, or some specific purpose computer such as a workstation. The computer may be an Intel (e.g., Pentium or Core 2 duo) or AMD based computer, running Windows XP or Linux, or may be a Macintosh computer. The computer may also be a handheld computer, such as a PDA, cellphone, or laptop.
The programs may be written in C or Python, or Java, Brew or any other programming language. The programs may be resident on a storage medium, e.g., magnetic or optical, e.g. the computer hard drive, a removable disk or media such as a memory stick or SD media, wired or wireless network based or Bluetooth based Network Attached Storage (NAS), or other removable medium or other removable medium. The programs may also be run over a network, for example, with a server or other machine sending signals to the local machine, which allows the local machine to carry out the operations described herein.
Where a specific numerical value is mentioned herein, it should be considered that the value may be increased or decreased by 20%, while still staying within the teachings of the present application, unless some different range is specifically mentioned. Where a specified logical sense is used, the opposite logical sense is also intended to be encompassed.
This application claims priority from application No. 60/848,141 and from application No. 60/880,570 filed Jan. 16, 2007, the disclosures of which are herewith incorporated by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60848141 | Sep 2006 | US | |
60880570 | Jan 2007 | US |