Inventory taking system
A system which is able to take inventory of products stored in high rise racks and immediately provide the inventory information to an information system for immediate processing and which makes use of remote electronic identification means for each product, box, etc. and each row of a correspondent rack, thus allowing the system to read great amounts of information at once.
1. An inventory taking system for using in warehouses having a plurality of racks each having a plurality of rows which may be vertically divided forming cells each including a front and a bottom corresponding to the width of the rack, wherein the products always move from the bottom to the front comprising:
a rfid tag for each cell of a corresponding rack, each having information including number of rack, position of the cell, product capacity and current number of stored products;
a rfid tag for each product, each having information including product information and location of the product on the rack;
at least one inventory taking device, each comprising:
one or more RFID tag reading means, each RFID tag reading means located vertically located along a vertical support;
moving means for the inventory taking device;
control means, receiving information from the RFID tag reading means and sending said information to a remote information system through electronic information transmission means having wireless information transmission and reception means, and controlling the moving means for guiding the inventory taking device through a predetermined path, and further wireless receiving signals from the remote information system for starting and stopping an inventory taking operation; and
an electronic information and control system having wireless information receiving and sending means, receiving information from the wireless information transmission means of each inventory taking device for its processing and use and sending a plurality of signals to each inventory taking device for starting or stopping the inventory taking operation,
wherein the electronic information and control system sends a start signal to at least one of the plurality of inventory taking devices and when the inventory taking devices receive the start signal, the control means of each inventory taking device sends a signal to the moving means in order to start moving the device along a predetermined path, the inventory taking device's movement may be remotely controlled by the electronic information and control system in accordance with several predetermined paths or routes, and wherein the control means also activate the RFID tag reading means.
2. The inventory taking system of claim 1 , wherein, each RFID tag reading means is located vertically located along a vertical support corresponding to the height of each row of the plurality of racks.
3. The inventory taking system of claim 2 , wherein the number of RFID tag reading means correspond to the maximum number of rows of the plurality of racks.