Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Inventory management
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-16
2004-04-06
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 3623)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Inventory management
C705S001100, C705S016000, C705S026640, C705S500000, C705S022000, C700S240000, C700S236000, C700S231000, C700S233000, C700S239000, C700S283000, C700S285000, C221S001000, C221S002000, C225S005000, C702S012000, C702S025000, C702S050000, C702S055000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06718311
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to methods, apparatus and systems in which items are provided in response to requests for such items, and in which it is desired to ensure that an item is provided in response to each request for such item. The invention has particular application to the dispensing of beverages such as in a bar or night club, for example.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many systems exist in which requests for an item are received and items are provided in response to such requests. An example of such a system is that used to provide customers with beverages in a bar or night club. In some bars, waitresses, waiters and/or customers make requests for drinks by speaking to a bartender. A record of the request for a drink is simultaneously or shortly thereafter entered into a point of sale system such as a cash register. The bartender then responds by making the drink and providing it to the customer or to the waiter or waitress for transport to the customer.
As a bar gets busy, there may be a plurality of waitresses and/or customers all speaking to the bartender at the same time or in rapid succession, and the bartender may not be able to keep up with such requests or may forget some of the requests. Conversely, the bartender, waiters or waitresses may forget to enter into the cash register a request for a particular drink provided by the bartender. Dishonest practices of bartenders or waitresses may also result in failure to enter a request for a drink into the cash register. Consequently, requests for drinks or items may not be matched with provisions of the drinks or items, resulting in over or under charging customers and too few or too many drinks being provided. This can result in loss of revenue to a bar owner, both directly in the case of failure to enter a request, and indirectly where a customer becomes dissatisfied because of a failure to promptly provide a drink for which the customer has been billed.
In the past, a number of systems have been proposed to monitor the dispensing of beverages.
One such system involves a dispensing pump and a control console for controlling the pump. Information on drinks made and served is automatically downloaded to a Point-of-Sales (POS) system or a cash register. However, this system requires the substitution of a positive displacement pump for conventional dispensing systems, and requires a separate pump for each drink to be monitored, disadvantageously resulting in additional expenses. Also, by automatically downloading information on the dispensed drinks to a cash register, this system fails to address the problem that the same volume of the same liquor may have several different prices, depending on whether it is served by itself, in a larger size, or in a mixed drink. Furthermore, this system removes a bartender's discretion to generate legitimate variances between dispensed amounts and billed amounts, for example, to replace drinks spilled by bartending staff, to provide “taster” samples, or to provide complimentary drinks to regular customers.
Another such system employs a plurality of assemblies to determine weights of bottles placed thereon, and a unique element placed on each bottle to identify the particular bottle. Each assembly includes a transducer for producing an output signal indicative of the weight of a bottle placed on the assembly, and a sensor for producing an output signal indicative of the identifying unique element on the bottle. A computer receives both of these output signals, and computes the weight of each bottle. When a bottle is removed from one of the assemblies to pour a beverage, and then replaced onto one of the assemblies, the computer is able to compute the change in weight of the bottle, and thus the volume dispensed. However, this system would require large capital expenditures, since a separate weighing assembly would be required for every bottle or container in use in the bar. This system also carries a significant time cost, since staff members must painstakingly attach an identifying unique element to every bottle or container in the bar.
In a third system, if a staff member attempts to dispense a drink without first identifying himself by entering an authorization code, an automatic valve will close, preventing further dispensation. In a fourth similar system, a staff member is issued a credit card with a fixed credit. The staff member must insert the credit card in a dispensing device before dispensing each beverage. When the fixed credit is used, the server must return the card to a cashier and pay the cashier the cash equivalent of the used credit. In addition to the aforementioned difficulty of removing the server's discretion to generate legitimate variances, these systems increase the amount of time required to dispense each beverage, and are therefore unsuitable for busy, large-capacity establishments.
Thus, there is a need for a relatively inexpensive and unobtrusive dispensing system which calculates variances between provided and requested amounts of an item, and which signals an operator when a requested item has not been provided. Such a system may be used to remind bartenders to dispense billed drinks and to bill dispensed drinks.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the above need by providing an apparatus operable to receive request indications for an item and indications that the item has been provided, and by signalling an operator, such as a bartender, when a request indication has no corresponding provided indication. By means of the above apparatus, requests for items are matched with corresponding provisions of such items and the operator is notified when a request indication has no corresponding provided indication. The invention may be extended to further notify the operator when a provided indication has no corresponding request indication.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method and apparatus for receiving a request indication representing a request for an item, receiving a provided indication representing providing the item, and signalling an operator when the request indication has no corresponding provided indication. The apparatus includes a request indication receiver, a provided indication receiver, a processing circuit and a signal device in communication with the processing circuit for carrying out the method.
Preferably, the signal device signals the operator when the provided indication has no corresponding request indication.
The apparatus may include a storage device and the method may include receiving and storing a plurality of request indications and a plurality of provided indications. The processing circuit may cooperate with the signal device to carry out the method by signalling the operator when a newly received request indication has no corresponding stored provided indication, or when a newly received provided indication has no corresponding stored request indication.
Receiving the request indication may include receiving a representation of a requested amount of the item, and receiving the provided indication may include receiving a representation of a provided amount of the item. The request indication receiver and provided indication receiver are operable to carry out these steps.
Preferably, the method includes, when a new requested amount representation is received, cancelling a previous provided amount while reducing the new requested amount by the cancelled provided amount and adding any non-cancelled new requested amount to a previous requested amount. Similarly, the method preferably includes, when a new provided amount representation is received, cancelling the previous requested amount while reducing the new provided amount by the cancelled requested amount and adding any non-cancelled new provided amount to the previous provided amount. The processing circuit cooperates with the storage device to perform these steps. The method may further include signalling an operator when the non-cancelled new requested amount or the non-cancelled new prov
Hafiz Tariq R.
Robinson-Boyce Akiba
Sprint Enterprises Inc.
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