Automated activity-based management system
First Claim
1. An automated activity-based management system for a business organization having costs associated with its people, facilities, and equipment to produce products and/or provide services, said business organization having accounting information including an accounting structure and expenses stored electronically in a storage device, comprising;
- at least one computer workstation having an user interface accepting activity information including information related to percentages of time spent on each activity by the people, and utilization information related to said facilities and equipment;
a relational database coupled to said storage device and said at least one computer workstation automatically downloading, receiving and storing said accounting information from said storage device, and receiving said activity information from said computer workstation; and
a database server coupled to said relational database and said computer workstation dynamically processing said accounting information and said activity information in response to requests received from said computer workstation, and mapping said expenses to the costs associated with the people, facilities, and equipment components of each activity, to determine a component cost allocation for each activity.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An automated activity-based management system and method (10) for making thereof are provided. A business organization has costs associated with its employees, facilities, equipment, and overhead to produce products or provide services. Such a business organization typically generates traditional general ledger accounting information (152) and human resources information (150). This traditional accounting information (150, 152, 154) is used along with information directed to activities, equipment usage and facilities utilization to generate costs associated with activities performed by the organization. A computer workstation (40) with a graphical user interface (42) is used to accept entries of activity information (74). The activity information and traditional accounting information are fed to a relational database (12). The information is processed and costs associated with the employee, facilities, equipment, and overhead components (20, 22, 24, 26) of activities are computed. User-definable ad-hoc reports as well as preformated reports for trending, forecasting, comparison, benchmarking, and budgeting purposes are generated.
465 Citations
74 Claims
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1. An automated activity-based management system for a business organization having costs associated with its people, facilities, and equipment to produce products and/or provide services, said business organization having accounting information including an accounting structure and expenses stored electronically in a storage device, comprising;
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at least one computer workstation having an user interface accepting activity information including information related to percentages of time spent on each activity by the people, and utilization information related to said facilities and equipment; a relational database coupled to said storage device and said at least one computer workstation automatically downloading, receiving and storing said accounting information from said storage device, and receiving said activity information from said computer workstation; and a database server coupled to said relational database and said computer workstation dynamically processing said accounting information and said activity information in response to requests received from said computer workstation, and mapping said expenses to the costs associated with the people, facilities, and equipment components of each activity, to determine a component cost allocation for each activity. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. An automated activity-based management system for a business organization occupying facilities, employing people and using equipment, the business organization generating traditional accounting information including accounting structures and expenses, comprising:
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a relational database automatically receiving said traditional accounting information and accepting information related to activities provided by users, said activity information includes the activities performed, the percentage of time each activity is performed, equipment utilization data, and space utilization data; a people module operable to process said traditional accounting information and said activity information and generate a people cost component associated with each activity; a facilities module operable to process said traditional accounting information and said activity information and generate a facilities cost component associated with each activity; an equipment module operable to process said traditional accounting information and said activity information and generate an equipment cost component associated with each activity; and a reporting module operable to generate cost summaries, of said activities in response to said generated cost components. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51)
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52. An automated activity-based method for managing a business organization, the business organization occupying facilities and having people using equipment, the business organization generating traditional accounting information including accounts and expenses, the method comprising the steps of:
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automatically downloading the traditional accounting information to a relational database; feeding activity information including activities performed by employees, the percentage of time employees spend on performing each activity, equipment utilization rates, and facility utilization to said relational database; computing from the activity information and the accounting information a people cost component associated with each activity; computing from the activity information and the accounting information a facilities cost component associated with each activity; computing from the activity information and the accounting information an equipment cost component associated with each activity; and generating reports summarizing said computed cost components associated with each activity. - View Dependent Claims (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74)
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Specification