When I did the survey myself I thought of a lot more questions he could of asked. I gave him initial guidance but was very conscious that this was his A level project not mine. Any comments and ideas will be passed on to him though and thanks for the inputs so far
Some brief history from my background. Using sales from scanning checkouts to drive stock inventory really settled in the late 80s, early 90s. Before that a lot of tills simply recorded the department a product belonged to. You knew department sales but not individual sales of products. Sales from tills didn’t feed into stock inventory just sales in £ sterling. The stock control team had to go out overnight when the stores were closed (remember those days?) and count everything on the shelf and back room to get an accurate inventory for ordering. Some ordering was still pen and paper and ring the supplier with your order for that week.This happened every night. Using sales to drive stock inventory to the nearest hour revolutionised this , and stock control became much more than feet on the ground overnight. Orders to suppliers and deliveries started to be shorter lead times and twice a day. Actual stock counting became much less frequent and more targeted at high value shrinkage areas. Shrinkage refers either to theft or simply differences between what the systems say you should have, and what you actually have. Waste is the other thing to capture due to damage or food being out of code. PDCU , portable data capture units are also a technology of the 80s. In those days they weren’t wireless and had to be plugged in to a mini computer to upload the stock inventory information they’d captured. Now days they are wireless and often dedicated rugged smartphones or tablets on a dedicated encrypted wireless mesh network in large retail stores and warehouses.
Warehouses are also a wonder of automation. Again mathematical algorithms work out the best locations to store items to optimise picking and costs and time etc. Plus track where items are located in the depots which are often over a mile long and half a mile wide.
