Value chain management

• US 10,102,488 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Issued: 10/16/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Blue Yonder Group, Inc. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: JDA Software Group Incorporated (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Fischer, David J., Squires, Geoffrey M., Sharma, Rakesh, Ganesan, Ramnath, Ghodke, Deepak M., Rangarajan, Bharadwaj
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty, Romain
• Application Number:
  US11/931,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20080052149A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,003 Days
• Field of Search: 705 711, 3 711
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities

Abstract

A system for managing a value chain includes a planning application that receives planning data from a number of entities included in a value chain and automatically generates a plan according to the planning data. At least two of the entities do not directly communicate planning data to one another. The system also includes a manager application that receives the plan and automatically identifies one or more exceptions in the plan, communicates planning data relating to the exceptions to one or more of the entities, receives instructions from one or more of the entities regarding how the exceptions are to resolved, and automatically modifies the planning data in response to the instructions.

Claims

1. An electronic commerce value chain management system to increase value chain processing efficiency, comprising:

a value chain comprising two or more enterprises, at least two of the two or more enterprises is non-adjacent with another enterprise and not directly communicating with one another, the two or more enterprises comprising a server computer comprising a processor and a memory, and an enterprise database and configured to;

determine set-up information of an electronic marketplace; and

store the set-up information in the enterprise database; and

an active data warehouse comprising a server and an active data warehouse database and configured to;

receive by a spoke application set-up information over a computer network from at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises;

communicate the set-up information over the computer network to the active data warehouse database;

constantly monitor the active data warehouse database to detect an error in the set-up information;

automatically validate one or more aspects of the set-up information to determine whether an error is detected in the set-up information;

automatically generate an error log based on the detected error in the set-up information and automatically communicate the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises; and

at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises automatically regenerates the set-up information based, at least in part, on the generated error log.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the set-up information comprises data related to at least one of the following:

products;

product components;

items in the value chain;

suppliers;

contracts;

capacity trees;

bills of materials; and

mappings between items supplied or procured by other entities.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the spoke application communicates set-up information based on a predetermined schedule.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein:

communicate the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises comprises storing the error log in a secure data storage location associated with the two or more non-adjacent enterprises; and

the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises is further configured to;

access the error log;

correct the error log; and

regenerate some or all of the set-up information.

5. An electronic commerce value chain management system to increase value chain processing efficiency, comprising:

a computer system comprising a server, the computer system configured to;

determine set-up information of an electronic marketplace, the marketplace comprising two or more enterprises in a value chain, at least two of the two or more enterprises is non-adjacent with another enterprise and not directly communicating with one another;

store the set-up information in an enterprise database;

receive, by a spoke application, set-up information over a computer network from at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises;

store the set-up information in an active data warehouse database; and

validate one or more aspects of the set-up information, when a validation detects an error in the set-up information, generate an error log and communicate the error log over the computer network to the two or more non-adjacent enterprises.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the set-up information comprises data related to at least one of the following:

products;

product components;

items in the value chain;

suppliers;

contracts;

capacity trees;

bills of materials; and

mappings between items supplied or procured by other entities.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the spoke application communicates set-up information based on a predetermined schedule.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein communicate the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises comprises:

storing the error log in a secure data storage location associated with the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises;

granting access to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises to the secure data location such that the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises further;

accesses the error log;

corrects the error log; and

regenerates some or all of the set-up information.

9. A computer-implemented method for detecting an error in set-up information of non-adjacent enterprises in an electronic commerce value chain management system and to increase value chain processing efficiency, comprising:

determining, by a processor, set-up information of an electronic marketplace, the processor storing the set-up information in an enterprise database and comprising two or more enterprises in a value chain, at least two of the two or more enterprises is non-adjacent with another enterprise and not directly communicating with one another;

receiving, by a spoke application tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium, set-up information over a computer network from at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises and communicating the set-up information over the computer network to an active data warehouse database;

constantly monitoring the active data warehouse database to detect an error in the set-up information;

automatically validating one or more aspects of the set-up information, by the processor, to determine whether an error is detected in the set-up information;

automatically generating, by the processor, an error log based on the detected error in the set-up information and communicating the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises; and

automatically regenerating the set-up information of at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises, by the processor based, at least in part, on the generated error log.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the set-up information comprises data related to at least one of the following:

products;

product components;

items in the value chain;

suppliers;

contracts;

capacity trees;

bills of materials; and

mappings between items supplied or procured by other entities.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the spoke application communicates set-up information based on a predetermined schedule.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein communicating the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises comprises:

storing the error log in a secure data storage location associated with the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises;

granting access to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises to the secure data location such that the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises further;

accessing the error log;

correcting the error log; and

regenerating some or all of the set-up information.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodied with software for detecting an error in set-up information of non-adjacent enterprises in an electronic commerce value chain management system and to increase value chain processing efficiency, the software when executed using one or more computers is configured to:

determine set-up information of an electronic marketplace, the electronic marketplace stores the set-up information in an enterprise database and comprises two or more enterprises in a value chain, at least two of the two or more enterprises is non-adjacent with another enterprise and not directly communicating with one another;

receive set-up information over a computer network from at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises and communicate the set-up information over the computer network to an active data warehouse database;

monitor the active data warehouse database to detect an error in the set-up information;

validate one or more aspects of the set-up information to determine whether an error is detected in the set-up information;

generate an error log based on the detected error in the set-up information and communicate the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises; and

automatically regenerate the set-up information of at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises based, at least in part, on the generated error log.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the set-up information comprises data related to at least one of the following:

products;

product components;

items in the value chain;

suppliers;

contracts;

capacity trees;

bills of materials; and

mappings between items supplied or procured by other entities.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the spoke application communicates set-up information based on a predetermined schedule.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein communicating the error log over the computer network to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises comprises:

storing the error log in a secure data storage location associated with the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises;

granting access to the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises to the secure data location such that the at least one of the two or more non-adjacent enterprises further;

accessing the error log;

correcting the error log; and

regenerating some or all of the set-up information.