Dynamic order fulfillment for communications, information and entertainment services

• US 20090116626A1
• Filed: 11/02/2007
• Published: 05/07/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nytell Software LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: TTI Inventions C LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Atwater, Beauford, Cochinwala, Munir, Wullert, John R. II, Micallef, Josephine
• Granted Patent: US 8,577,733 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/93.120
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A system and method to enable dynamic partner selection and subsequent order fulfillment by a service provider is presented. The system and method has an order entry device for obtaining an order, a service specification corresponding to the order, a flow execution engine, a partner selector mechanism, at least one partner, and at least one component obtained from the service specification, the component being broadcast from the partner selector mechanism to the partner, who responds to the broadcast, such that all of the partner responses are optimized by the partner selector mechanism for execution by said flow execution engine to fulfill the order.

Claims

1. A system to enable dynamic partner selection and subsequent order fulfillment by a service provider, said system comprising:

an order entry device for obtaining an order;

a service specification corresponding to said order;

a flow execution engine;

a partner selector mechanism;

at least one partner; and

at least one component obtained from said service specification, said at least one component being broadcast from said partner selector mechanism to said at least one partner, wherein said at least one partner responds to said broadcast of said at least one component, all of said partner responses being optimized by said partner selector into a flow executable by said flow execution engine to fulfill said order.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said at least one partner further comprises said service provider.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said partner selector mechanism optimizes all of said partner responses based on at least one of a delivery time of said at least one component, a cost of said at least one component, an availability of said at least one component, and a performance metric of said at least one partner.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the partner selector mechanism optimizes all of said partner responses based on rules contained within the components and the service specification.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein if one of said at least one partners does not perform a response, another of said at least one partners can be chosen to perform the response.

6. A method to enable dynamic partner selection and subsequent order fulfillment by a service provider, said method comprising the steps of:

obtaining an order;

determining a service specification corresponding to said order, said service specification having at least one component;

broadcasting said at least one component to at least one partner;

receiving at least one response from said at least one partner, and optimizing said at least one response to create a flow; and

fulfilling said order using said flow.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said at least one partner further comprises said service provider.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein said optimizing said at least one response is based on at least one of a delivery time of said at least one component, a cost of said at least one component, an availability of said at least one component, and a performance metric of said at least one partner.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein said optimizing said at least one response is based on rules contained within the at least one components and the service specification.

10. The method according to claim 6, wherein if one of said at least one partner does not perform the response, another of said at least one partner performs the response.