Logistics system for automating transportation of goods
First Claim
1. A logistics management tool to facilitate the process of shipping goods by a shipper via a selected one of a plurality of carriers, comprising:
- a plurality of rate servers comprising computer-implemented rate storage and calculating means, at least one rate server for each of said plurality of carriers, at least one of said rate servers having message processing means for sending, receiving and handling messages;
at least one of said rate servers having database means for maintaining a record of the rates applicable to a given one of said carriers and further having an embedded set of predefined methods representing the rate computation rules of said given one of said carriers;
at least one client application comprising computer-implemented input and output means separate from said rate servers and having user interface to permit the shipper to interact with said logistics management tool in order to process the shipment of goods;
at least one of said rate servers having a shipper interface means for defining a set of operations accessible to said client application;
the set of operations representing the procedure by which the shipper ships goods to thereby isolate the set of operations by which a shipper ships from the rules by which a carrier transports;
at least one supervisory server for integrating operations of said rate server, and for making said operations accessible to said client application, said supervisory server having message processing means for sending messages to and receiving messages from said rate server and said client application and for handling messages sent and received based upon a predefined set of rules.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The various transportation logistics tasks, such as order processing, order fulfillment, transportation of goods and tracking, are assigned to individual client/server objects which make up the building blocks of the computerized logistics management system. A tokenized message handling scheme allows client and server objects to share information, even where the respective data types do not match. An external processing manager provides script handling services to other client applications, allowing those applications to modify the performance of other program objects and to communicate with the outside world.
264 Citations
12 Claims
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1. A logistics management tool to facilitate the process of shipping goods by a shipper via a selected one of a plurality of carriers, comprising:
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a plurality of rate servers comprising computer-implemented rate storage and calculating means, at least one rate server for each of said plurality of carriers, at least one of said rate servers having message processing means for sending, receiving and handling messages; at least one of said rate servers having database means for maintaining a record of the rates applicable to a given one of said carriers and further having an embedded set of predefined methods representing the rate computation rules of said given one of said carriers; at least one client application comprising computer-implemented input and output means separate from said rate servers and having user interface to permit the shipper to interact with said logistics management tool in order to process the shipment of goods; at least one of said rate servers having a shipper interface means for defining a set of operations accessible to said client application;
the set of operations representing the procedure by which the shipper ships goods to thereby isolate the set of operations by which a shipper ships from the rules by which a carrier transports;at least one supervisory server for integrating operations of said rate server, and for making said operations accessible to said client application, said supervisory server having message processing means for sending messages to and receiving messages from said rate server and said client application and for handling messages sent and received based upon a predefined set of rules. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification