Authors:
Patricia Hogan, Susan Brosnan, Daniel Goins, Jessica Snead
Abstract:
This disclosure proposes a Point-of-Sale (POS) application that learns the behavior of cashiers. The POS application could learn that the cashier always takes a long time to remember or find the PLU for red bell peppers, or the cashier takes a long time to find the bar code on Dannon yogurts. When the cashier signs on to the POS application, it could show a tips of the day screen customized for that cashier.
Background:
There are some tasks or operations that a cashier is slower at completing compared to their peers. The Point-of-Sale (POS) application could learn that the cashier always takes a long time to remember or find the PLU for red bell peppers, or the cashier takes a long time to find the bar code on Dannon yogurts. When the cashier signs on to the POS application, it could show a tips of the day screen customized for that cashier.
Description:
Many existing POS applications already track cashier performance metrics like how long they spend scanning items in a transaction, how much time tendering, etc. We could extend the scanning metrics to see if there are particularly long pauses before or after certain items. We could see if there is a pattern of items that take the cashier a long time. The POS application could take the information about the items or procedures the cashier does more slowly, and the POS application could compile a list of tips specific to a cashier to train them how to scan the items faster. The tips could be displayed when the cashier signs-in to the POS application.
Another, more expensive way of doing this would be to use video analytics that are analyzing the cashier and detecting which items they have trouble scanning or entering the PLU for. The video analytics could detect slow behavior and then link that to the item code scanned or entered after the slow behavior or the video analytics could also recognize the item the cashier is having an issue with. The POS application could build up a list of recommendations on how the cashier could speed up scanning or typing in the product lookup code or item code.
If the POS application detects that there is always a long pause before it sees a scan of the Dannon yogurt barcode, the POS application could come up with a tip for the cashier to say the barcode for Dannon Yogurt has moved from the side of the container to the container lid.
If the POS application detects that the cashier always has a long pause before they key in the product lookup code for Red Bell Peppers, the tip could be that the PLU for Red Bell Peppers is 4688.
The POS application could also display tips based on the season or what items have a special offer on them today, and so it is likely the cashier will be scanning or entering many of those items. At the start of the summer, the store may have blackberries, watermelon and yellow sweet corn, the tip could be that the PLU for
- blackberries is 4239
- watermelon is 4031
- yellow sweet corn is 4078.
Supporting Art:
Prior art exists for having help buttons that can then show videos of how to change the receipt paper roll in the printer or show other recorded videos of how to do certain Point-of-Sale procedures. Our idea is different in that we do not intend to show a pre-recorded video of how to do a certain Point-Of-Sale procedure. Our idea, is that by using analytics the system determines which items the cashier always has issues with when trying to scan the bar code or enter the PLU. Having learned that information, the system could present the cashier with tips, when the cashier signs on.
TGCS Reference 3082
