Inventory system for a mini-market chain

Problem

To find stock, an expiry date or a price, an employee walked to the computer in the back room.

Hypothesis

If a code scan at the shelf opens all three, the answer takes seconds instead of a trip.

Solution

Scan a product to see stock, expiry dates and prices in one place, the fastest path to any answer on the floor.

Problem

Staff rotate between stores, and passwords on shared devices were passed around by hand.

Hypothesis

If signing in is a badge scan with the store picked, a shift starts without passwords.

Solution

Employees sign in per store location by scanning a QR, with no passwords at the shelf.

Problem

Deliveries were checked against paperwork by hand, and mismatches surfaced after the goods were accepted.

Hypothesis

If items are scanned against the original order, a mismatch shows up at the door.

Solution

Deliveries are checked in by scanning against the original order, so mismatches surface immediately.

Problem

General ERP and inventory-management principles do not transfer to a mini-market chain on their own. Most of the work was reading the real workflow: who touches what, during which shift, with what in their hands. Then I adapted the system to it rather than the reverse.

Hypothesis

If the system speaks the language of the actual shift, which is scan, count, order, the staff will use it instead of a notebook.

Solution

A schedule of counts by product group with progress and owners; counting itself is a scan plus a quick quantity entry.

Problem

Daily duties ran on memory and word of mouth, and nobody knew how long a shift actually took.

Hypothesis

If a shift is a list of tasks with progress, the manager sees the load and the employee sees where it ends.

Solution

Shift checklists for opening, kitchen and cash register, with per-task progress and swipe gestures to complete or flag.

Problem

Goods near their expiry date were noticed when the only option left was to write them off.

Hypothesis

If the system gathers them into their own flow ahead of time, they can still be repriced and sold.

Solution

A dedicated flow for expiring goods and repricing, so expiry dates get caught before they become losses.

Problem

Write-off reasons were typed in free text, so stores could not be compared.

Hypothesis

If the reasons come from a fixed list, the accounting stays clean and comparable across stores.

Solution

A taxonomy of write-off reasons keeps accounting clean and comparable across stores.

Problem

Remembering what is running out, what is about to expire and what has to be ordered ate the shift. That memory had to move into the system.

Hypothesis

If the system remembers stock and expiry dates, the shift stops depending on who happened to remember what.

Solution

Deadlines, counts and orders arrive as pushes, filterable in the app and visible on the lock screen.

Problem

A chain of stores, rotating staff and several people updating stock at once: the data drifted, and nobody knew whose version was right.

Hypothesis

If sync is explicit and every change is logged, a mismatch becomes something visible and fixable instead of an argument.

Solution

A manual sync button fixes manager–floor data mismatches; roles and audit logging keep actions accountable.