The present invention relates generally to inventory control and more particularly to automatic shelf inventory data systems.
The availability of inventory technology coupled with the sales downturn and increased operating costs of recent recessionary periods have combined to force retailers to meet competitors' aggressive pricing by using more stringent inventory control techniques. The hidden costs associated with excess inventory or overstocking in the competitive retail industry are critically important. Large retailers estimate that the true cost of carrying inventory is on the order of 40% of the cost of the item per year. Moreover, the more inventory, the more manpower is required for inventory control. Most importantly to the retail food and drug trade, however, overstocking results in inflexible pricing. In many stores, electronic cash registers at the checkout counters have been replaced by computerized point of sale terminals. Optical scanners and bar codes on products, while posing other problems, allow flexible pricing and computerized real time inventory control and automated stock ordering. All in all, the various types of material requirement planning systems available today throughout the retail, wholesale and manufacturing sectors have become a indispensable tool of cost control.
Establishing precise control over retail inventory, however, requires more than reading bar codes at the checkout counter. In order to be purchased, products have to not only be ordered but delivered, uncrated, unboxed, marked and moved from the stock room onto the shelves or peg racks in the retail store. Even overstocked items will fail to reach the checkout counter unless they are on the shelf.
Taking inventory for reordering or restocking of shelves is time consuming but essential, particularly where individual stores such as discount drug stores, stock thousands of shelf items. Shelf stock-taking should be fast and inexpensive to encourage daily adjustments. However, today shelf inventory taken by visual inspection often requires manipulation of individual products hung eight deep on a peg rack. Bar codes are of little use on the shelf since they are usually hidden from view and in any event must be individually scanned. Ironically, the optical techniques which are so efficient at the checkout counter are ill adapted for inventorying shelf goods.