AI for Retail

CHAPTER 17AI for Replenishment and Labor Management

Current Roles, Processes, and Inefficiencies

The replenishment process (or availability, as some might call it) is the process by which retailers keep the stores’ shelves stocked. The objective of replenishment is to maintain as close to 100% OSA (on‐shelf availability) as possible with the least amount of labor possible. This may include subprocesses such as ordering (which we already covered in the last chapter), receiving (the process by which a truckload of new inventory is brought into the store such as breaking down a truckload and bringing stock into the store), replenishing the shelf (bringing product from truck to shelf), binning backstock (bringing excess product that cannot fit in the shelf to the back room), and then finally working backstock or deadstock (bringing product from the back room or top stock back to the sales floor to replenish an out or low).

I have split out inventory management and ordering processes in the previous chapter, and in this chapter I focus only on what happens after the order has been placed.

Let's look at a typical replenishment process for a traditional grocery store.

Every morning, the day crew scans the holes in the morning for three hours from 6 to 9 a.m. This could be done per department or one person for the entire store. Some may call this process “ones, tons, and nones.” Some may call this “shooting your highs and lows.” Every retailer has a different name. After they scan ...