MULTI-TIER INVENTORY VISIBILITY

• US 20080010170A1
• Filed: 07/05/2006
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HCL Technologies Limited
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chan, Victor, Wang, Fen, Lakhani, Aalim, Hubbard, Mark W., Tan, Daisy
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,825 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/28
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to inventory management and provide a method, system and computer program product for multi-tier inventory visibility. In one embodiment of the invention, a multi-tier inventory management data processing system can include an inventory management system coupled to one or more e-commerce applications over an enterprise bus, and multiple different instances of a tier inventory component, each of the instances corresponding to a local inventory cache. Each instance can include program code enabled to manage the local inventory cache and an inventory management API exposing inventory operations on the local inventory cache to other instances of the tier inventory component.

Claims

1. A multi-tier inventory management data processing system comprising:

an inventory management system coupled to one or more e-commerce applications over an enterprise bus; and

,

a plurality of instances of a tier inventory component, each of the instances corresponding to a local inventory cache, each instance comprising program code enabled to manage the local inventory cache, each instance further comprising an inventory management application programming interface (API) exposing inventory operations on the local inventory cache to other instances of the tier inventory component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the inventory management system is coupled to and rendered accessible by an instance of the tier inventory component.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each instance of the tier inventory component further comprises:

an event manager for the local inventory cache; and

,

inventory management rules specifying priming and management for the local inventory cache.

4. The system of claim 3, further comprising an outbound messaging adapter coupled to the event manager and enabled to request inventory operations on other instances of the tier inventory component.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instances of the tier inventory component are arranged hierarchically.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising propagation rules specifying propagation of inventory data from the local inventory cache to other local inventory caches for other instances of the tier inventory component at lower hierarchical levels.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the inventory operations comprise operations selected from the group consisting of an inventory lookup and an inventory reservation.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the inventory operations comprises operations selected from the group consisting of local and remote operations.

9. A multi-tier inventory management method comprising:

priming a local inventory cache with a subset of inventory data for an enterprise data processing system;

exposing access to the local inventory cache through an inventory management application programming interface (API); and

,

requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising propagating changes in the local inventory cache to another local inventory cache.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache, comprises requesting an inventory lookup on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache, comprises requesting an inventory reservation on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.

13. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium embodying computer usable program code for multi-tier inventory management, the computer program product including:

computer usable program code for priming a local inventory cache with a subset of inventory data for an enterprise data processing system;

computer usable program code for exposing access to the local inventory cache through an inventory management application programming interface (API); and

,

computer usable program code for requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising computer usable program code for propagating changes in the local inventory cache to another local inventory cache.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer usable program code for requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache, comprises computer usable program code for requesting an inventory lookup on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer usable program code for requesting inventory operations on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache, comprises computer usable program code for requesting an inventory reservation on a different local inventory cache through an API for the different local inventory cache.