US Patent 11688223 Item management, systems and methods

Provided herein are automated article dispensing systems having inventory management capabilities, and methods for managing inventory of articles in automated dispensing systems. In particular, the systems and methods disclosed herein utilize an inventory management assembly which includes one or more sensors configured to detect directly or indirectly one or more parameters related to quality and/or quantity the articles and an inventory management processing module configured to compute inventory related data based at least on the one or more parameters.