Hitachi, Ltd.

Nichirei Corporation

Tetsuo Kusuzaki

Kichizo Akashi

Isao Tsushima

Tadashi Tenma

Norihisa Komoda

Hiroaki Oyama

Tatsumi Nishimoto

Tadashi Temma

Akira Ishibashi

Makoto Kobayashi

Koichi Homma

Akira Kagami

Shuji Soga

Mitsuo Sudo

Masao Yagi

Miyuki Maeda

Takahiro Miura

Akira Kinefuchi

Shouji Igeta

Naohiko Kunishi

Kazumi Abe

Hiromichi Kimura

Katsufumi Mihara

Takahiro Katayanagi

Takayuki Ishii

A method and system for managing the overall life cycle of a product from its manufacture to its destruction or recycling. To the product is affixed a storage medium storing a product identifier uniquely identifying the product and information about the parts that are contained in the product. At each site that the product passes through during its life cycle, product life cycle information is recorded in the storage medium affixed to the product. When the product is to be destroyed or recycled, the information stored in the recording medium is used to determine the method for destroying or recycling. The product is then destroyed or recycled according to this method.

Method for managing life cycles and system for the same

A questionnaire producing and aiding system according to the present invention is arranged to store a questionnaire element including a question and a plurality of reply choices which have been previously produced in a memory thereof. When a questionnaire is produced, the saved questionnaire element is used while adding, correcting and deleting the contents so that a questionnaire sheet is produced. Therefore, the questionnaire producing operation can be performed efficiently. The data about the produced questionnaire sheet are stored in a portable recording medium. The questionnaire reply gathering system according to the present invention is arranged to read data about the questionnaire sheet from the storage medium to display the contents of the questionnaire sheet on the terminal display apparatus, and to gather reply data supplied from the terminal input apparatus to be stored in the portable storage medium. The questionnaire reply gathering system is constituted by a small portable computer so that a questionnaire can be conducted after it has been moved to an arbitrary place. The questionnaire totalizing and analyzing system according to the present invention performs a totalizing process and an analyzing process by reading instructed reply data from the storage medium. As described above, data are transmitted/received between systems by means of the portable recording medium so that a necessity of establishing a direct connection between systems by using communication lines or external input apparatus can be eliminated, and thereby the handling facility can be improved.

Questionnaire system

A merchandising system for conducting a control of article display positions that are generally changed by the customers includes a method of obtaining article display positions based on the present display state. In this system, when selecting coordinate items to be suitably combined with an article, the display positions thereof can be easily determined, which advantageously helps the customer to search the store or floor for the desired items.

Visual merchandizing (VMD) control method and system

From a blank goods layout map of a gondola showing a goods layout on each gondola by contours, a user request is inputted for displaying information of the merchandise management, the information responding to the request is output for the corresponding goods layout map, a user request is inputted for a selected elemental operation, and the inputted request is transferred to the elemental operation for execution.

Method for supporting merchandise management operation and system

In a data management system necessary for management such as a profit management of a shop, it is required to collect and to analyze a great amount of various kinds of data items. In such a data management system, in addition to a data base storing therein all data, there are disposed a data base associated with each data utilization purpose and a data base for the data analysis so as to conduct data-base-oriented processing, which enables an analysis result suitable for a purpose to be easily attained and which simplifies the system configuration.

System and method for computing profits for individual entities of an

A goods layout planning method for making a layout for a quantity of goods arranged on gondolas in a store by using a terminal device including a display and a processor. Rules regarding goods layouts are stored in a knowledge base. The effort to make layout plans for goods can be simplified and the efficiency thereof improved by using sales data for each of the goods, attributes of goods, attributes of gondolas, and the rules with respect to the goods layouts.

Method of managing layout of goods

A job scheduling method for scheduling of job allocation to various resources, wherein each workload of a job is allocated to each time unit along a time axis in units of job and resource type. Based on the workload allocated in units of resource type, an initial workload for all resources at each time unit is calculated. A first workload balancing is performed for an initial workload at a time unit exceeding a resource capacity so as to balance the initial workload within the resource capacity. Thereafter, a second workload balancing is performed so as to balance a workload allocated in units of resource type within its resource capacity.

Job scheduling method and system

Growing community of inventors

Kawasaki, Japan

Tetsuo Kusuzaki