Patent Application
20240005384
The field of invention is that of logistics in shops providing an order delivery service at pick-up point, also known as “Drive-through”.
More specifically, the invention relates to a system for delivering an order at a pick-up point.
The invention is particularly applicable to the removal of food or consumer products at pick-up points.
It is known in shops offering order delivering service at pick-up point, also called “drive-through service”, where one or more pickers store the items of a collected order in bags on shelves, waiting for the customer to pick up the order. The sorting of the items in an order can be carried out during the collection round or when the order is put on the shelf.
This technique of preparing an order has many disadvantages. It requires a lot of manpower. In addition, with this known technique, a customer who comes to collect his order may have to wait for a certain length of time, the time it takes for a picker to collect his order from the shelves and deliver it to him, or in the event that all the pickers are busy carrying out a collection round and are not available to deliver his order.
In order to limit the waiting time of the customers, it was thought to implement automated delivery tracks of the order items from a buffer storage facility, also automated, which allow to hand over the order to a customer automatically as soon as the customer signals his presence on a kiosk of the pick-up point.
With this known technique, however, it takes about 2-3 minutes to collect the items in the order and deliver them to the pick-up point. The customer's vehicle thus remains parked at the pick-up point for a total of about 5-6 minutes, plus the time required for the customer to load the items into his vehicle, which limits the number of customers that can be delivered per hour at a pick-up point to 10-12 with this known technique.
In order to increase the number of customers that can be delivered per hour at a pick-up point, it was thought to implement additional terminals at the entrance to the car parks of the shops, allowing each customer to signal his arrival before he goes to the pick-up point, so that he can start collecting the items of his order stored in the buffer storage facility and bring them from the buffer storage to the pick-up point as soon as the customer enters the car park.
However, this known technique allows for a relatively small increase in the number of customers that can be delivered per hour (of the order of 20% at most), as the time required to cover the distance between the entrance to the car park and the pick-up point is generally quite short, and most often less than 1 minute.
An exemplary aspect of the present disclosure relates to a system for the automatic delivery of orders ordered online near the trunk of a vehicle comprising:
According to the invention, each access lane comprises a first space and a second space for parking vehicles, said second space being placed behind said first space in said lane, and said pick-up point comprises, for each order picking station:
Thus, in a new way, the invention proposes to implement, per order picking station of a pick-up point, two bar codes and/or two means of signalling a request for the delivery of an order and/or means of detecting the presence of a customer at two different parking spaces, in order to increase the number of delivery of orders per hour at each picking station.
The inventors have thus found that with the invention, it was possible to increase the number of orders handed over per hour at the pick-up point by more than 60% compared to known techniques for handing over an order at a pick-up point, for the same number of picking stations.
In a particular embodiment of the invention, said first signalling means and/or said second signalling means comprise a terminal.
Preferably, said first signalling means and said second signalling means are 5 to 10 metres apart.
Advantageously, said access and parking lanes are arranged in a herring-bone pattern and form an angle of 30 to 50° with a service road of said pick-up point.
In particular embodiments of the invention, said first signalling means and/or said second signalling means comprise at least one signalling element from the group comprising at least:
In particular embodiments of the invention, said means for detecting the presence of a customer having made an order in the vicinity of said first parking space and/or said means for detecting the presence of a customer having made an order in the vicinity of said second parking space comprise at least one detection element belonging to the group comprising at least:
In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, said pick-up point comprises, for each access and parking lane, means for signalling the number of vehicles parked in said access and parking lane.
According to a particular aspect of the invention, said means for signalling the number of vehicles parked in an access and parking lane comprise a traffic light.
In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, as said stored items are delivered in bins to said picking stations, at least one of said picking stations comprises means for transferring empty bins to said automated conveying means.
The invention also relates to a method for automatically delivering orders ordered in-line near the trunk of a vehicle in a pick-up point having a plurality of order picking stations, each of which has associated therewith a motor vehicle access and parking lane adjacent thereto, each access lane comprises a first location and a second vehicle parking space, said second space being located behind said first space in said lane, said pick-up point being associated with:
Other features and advantages of the invention will become clearer from the following description of two embodiments of the invention, given merely as illustrative and non-limiting examples, and of the appended figures, among which:
This pick-up point 11 is located close to a storage warehouse 12 adjoining the sales area of the shop and has, in this particular embodiment of the invention, five parallel order-picking stations 131 to 135 which are accessed by car via five access and temporary parking lanes 141 to 145, in a herringbone pattern, each associated with a picking station 13.
Each of the lanes 141 to 145 is sized to accommodate two motor vehicles 151, 152 one behind the other.
The individual items in an order are delivered to the pick stations 131 to 135 in bins from a buffer storage facility (not shown in
When a first customer 110 of the shop, who has previously placed an online order via the Internet, parks in a lane 141, 142, 143, 144 or 145 free of any vehicle and reports to a first terminal 18 equipped with a picking station, for example by entering a code on a screen or a keyboard, or by scanning a bar code corresponding to his order, which has been transmitted to him on his smartphone using a bar code reader on the terminal 18, the order delivery management computer unit of the system 10 then commands robots in the storage facility (not shown in
A second signalling terminal 19 is located at the level of each picking station 131 to 135, upstream of the first terminal 18, with respect to the direction of traffic of the access road 141, 142, 143, 144 or 145 associated with this picking station. This second terminal 19 is, in this particular embodiment of the invention, spaced from the first terminal 18 by a distance substantially equal to the length of a parking space.
When a second customer parks his vehicle 152 on the same access lane as the first customer's vehicle 151, behind the first customer, waiting for the first customer to leave, he signals his presence on the second terminal 19, for example by entering a code, or by scanning a bar code, corresponding to his order. The system's order delivery management computer unit 10 then commands robots in the storage facility to pick the second customer's order items from the buffer facility's storage shelves and transport them to a transfer station where they are deposited on the main conveyor track 171. The order items are then transported to the main conveyor track and distributed to the secondary conveyor track 172, where they are put on hold. When the first customer has finished loading his order into his vehicle and leaves the access lane 141, 142, 143, 144 or 145 to join the exit lane 111, the second customer moves his vehicle forward to the level of the first terminal 18 and signals his presence again at the level of the terminal 18, the articles of his order which are waiting on the secondary conveyor track 172 are directly handed over to him in succession on the order delivery table. He can then pick them up and load them into the trunk of his vehicle 152. It is easy to understand that the use of the two terminals 18 and 19 makes it possible to increase the number of orders that can be handed over per hour at each picking station 131 to 135, because the routing to the picking station of the articles of the customer who is waiting for the order of the customer who precedes him to be handed over to him begins as soon as the latter signals himself at the second terminal 19.
It should also be noted that to facilitate the placement of vehicles in the access lanes, each vehicle 112 that enters the service lane 112 is directed to a free pick-up station by means of traffic lights 114 placed at the entrance to each access lane 141 to 145. Thus, for example, a red light indicates that two motor vehicles are already parked on the driveway, an amber light indicates that only one vehicle is parked on the driveway and a green light indicates that the driveway is clear of vehicles.
This sampling station is adjacent to an access and parking lane 22 with a first parking space 23 and, to the rear of this, a second parking space 24, on which two vehicles 251 and 252 are parked, in the situation shown in
This picking station 21 comprises an order delivery table 213 on which customer order items are deposited from a buffer storage area, routed via a secondary overhead conveyor track 26, the end of which opens onto a delivery column 27. It also comprises, at the level of the first parking space 23, a terminal 29 on which is displayed or printed a QR-code 210 comprising information representative of the picking station 21 and at the front end of the second parking space 24, a panel 211 at height on which is displayed a second QR-code 212 comprising information representative of the picking station 21, which in this particular embodiment of the invention is identical to the first QR-code 210.
Thus, when the vehicle 252 parks in the second parking space 24 while waiting for the vehicle 251 to leave the first parking space 23, one of its occupants can scan the second QR-code with his smartphone without getting out of his vehicle by means of a dedicated application that he has downloaded. This application then generates a message to the order handover management module of the pick-up point containing information identifying his order and information identifying the pick-up station 21, which immediately triggers the routing of the items in his order to the pick-up station 21 through the lane 26. As soon as the vehicle 251 leaves the first parking space 23, the vehicle 252 can then move forward to the first parking space and an occupant of the vehicle 252 only needs to scan the second QR-code 212 on the terminal 211 with the dedicated application when going to open the trunk of the vehicle, so that the articles of the order, already routed to the picking station, are delivered to the order delivery table 213. A very short time therefore elapses bet-ween the moment when the second QR-code 212 is scanned and the moment when an occupant of the vehicle 252 can load the items of his order into the trunk of the vehicle 252.
One or more exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure overcomes one or more of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the state of the art.
More specifically, an exemplary embodiment provides a pick-up point order delivery technique that significantly increases the number of customers to whom an order can be delivered per hour at an order picking station of a pick-up point.
An exemplary embodiment provides such a technique that enables at least 20 orders per hour to be handed out per order picking station.
An exemplary embodiment provides such a simple to implement order delivery technique.
An exemplary embodiment provides such a technique at a reduced cost.
Although the present disclosure has been described with reference to one or more examples, workers skilled in the art will recognize that changes may be made in form and detail without departing from the scope of the disclosure and/or the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20197079.5 | Sep 2020 | EP | regional |
This Application is a Section 371 National Stage Application of International Application No. PCT/EP2021/075834, filed Sep. 20, 2021, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety and published as WO 2022/058596 A2 on Mar. 24, 2022, not in English.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2021/075834 | 9/20/2021 | WO |
