Quantifying inventory shrinkage rates using overhead camera arrays.

Most operators know their shrinkage rate as a single quarterly number. Overhead camera arrays let us break that number down into when, where, and most importantly, why.

Most operators know their shrinkage rate as a single quarterly number produced by a cycle count. Overhead camera arrays let us break that number down into when, where, and most importantly, why.

From a Single Number to a Timeline

A quarterly cycle count tells you that 2,400 units went missing sometime in the last 90 days. It cannot tell you whether that happened during a single bad shift or gradually across every aisle. Continuous overhead scanning replaces that single number with a timeline of exactly when each SKU count changed.

Attributing Loss to a Cause

By correlating shelf-occupancy drops against scan events, staffing schedules, and pallet movement logs, our models can separate shrinkage into three broad buckets: misplacement, damage, and unexplained loss.

In pilot facilities, misplacement alone accounted for a significant share of what had previously been recorded simply as shrinkage, meaning the inventory was never actually gone, just miscounted.

“Once you can see where a discrepancy happened, most of what used to be called "shrinkage" turns out to be a location problem, not a loss problem.”

That distinction changes how operators respond: a misplacement problem gets fixed with better slotting discipline, while a genuine loss problem gets escalated to security and process review.