Authors:
Rhonda Foshee, Jamal Khan, Logan Stanfield
Abstract:
This Disclosure proposes using item characteristics such as temperature, weight, size from the item file, to determine the availability of storage.
1) Items can be grouped according to temperature or size... The order could be divided by temperature or other storage requirements and have different pickers to get different temperature range items.
2) Based on the size and temperature, a pickup location can be assigned automatically, and even give an auto password for that location to the customer when the bin is opened to put in the groceries, and then removed when the bin is opened again to remove the groceries
3) Grouping by storage capacity can help a grocer to determine picking times as well as storage options.
Background:
When customer places items for groceries they order mixed items.
Some items have temperature requirements to maintain item freshness.
1. Hot item from bakery section i.e. ready to go food, fresh bread, pizza etc. which needs to be kept warm/hot to retain their freshness.
2. Cold item which need to be refrigerated (or frozen) at certain temperature,
A grocer may not want to pick up temperature sensitive items if there isn’t room. For example, if there’s no room for the freezer food, we may not want to pick up the hot items either. (and vise versa). An application can scan the full pickup items, determine the amount of space of each type that will be needed and then determine if the store has the proper storage capacity to pick the order. Further, based on customer expected pickup time, we may want to wait to prioritize other temperature sensitive items (or otherwise stored items) based on proper space. The goal is to properly prioritize picking based on storage, and customer pickup times.
Description:
This Proposal uses a combination of existing and new attributes for an item file (like location, temperature requirements, bag requirements, weight, size) , and storage attributes (temperature, size, storage usage times, in use, etc) to optimize pick times to minimize storage, but to also not start a pickup if storage isn’t available.
A picking app could first scan the entire picklist, determining specific bagging requirements (such as freezer bags or specific bags for hot items). It would not only optimize the route for picking, but it would optimize the storage.
This app could optimize the route in the store to ensure that hot/cold items are picked last, but also preassign storage. Sometimes, there is more than one person picking. You can’t assume that the empty freezer space is going to be available after you pick the order. An app would avoid any overlaps in orders, since each picklist would be evaluated to determine if there is room. Specifically it would compare weight, size, temperature, estimated customer pickup time, current time, storage space of a specific size, storage temp and availability.
Last, a storage space for each type of items selected could be pre-allocated so that each order would have a place to go BEFORE its picked. This could be done by adding auto locks on the storage area with a key in the app to open it when the picking is done.
Usages:
This particular idea is not about requiring additional lockers. It is about optimizing normal locker space that the store already has.
Enabling Technology:
Existing Item file information could be used (like certain departments might be assumed to need a certain temperature). We certainly have blue-tooth type locking devices to hold a storage during pickup if needed. Mobile apps could help map out the picking so that hot and cold are last, but this is primarily about pre-determining the storage availability. Data bases can easily keep track of storage, and size calculations can easily be done through processing.
TGCS Reference 2537
