CE-GMS: A cloud IoT-enabled grocery management system

Abstract With the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and cyber-physical systems, the multi-disciplinary area of mechatronics has become pervasive in “smart industry.” The infusion of the cloud IoT model to the business processes has broaden the horizon for the grocery business. This study puts forward an innovative design of a retail business model and its implementation, using sensor-based measurement containers (SBMCs) and an Android application, which contributes new ideas for the international community. SBMCs containers are employed in the system to mitigate the pressure related to a cloud IOT-enabled grocery management system (CE-GMS) for the management of necessary household commodities, by sensing their quantities on hand using an ultrasonic sensor. It allows an alert to be generated when the item quantities reach the reorder point. The proposed CE-GMS consists of four automated entities: production units, warehouses, stores and customer sites – all of which are equipped with SBMCs of varying physical capacities. Cloud computing aids the systems to communicate with each other for better coordination. The automated information flow from a customer’s SBMCs is handled by the nearest store. The data in the store’s containers are received by the warehouses, and the data in the warehouse’s SBMCs is sent to the production units. This communication among entities occurs with the support of GPS and GSM modules. The entity which receives information has the responsibility for supplying the necessary commodity products, by sensing the demand of the entity regarding commodity depletion. Further, the articles discusses the locking mechanism in SBMCs, inventory monitoring and container tracking for interaction in CE-GMS to validate the grocery market’s operations using an IoT-compliant layer.