Computerized cost estimate system and method

• US 7,319,991 B2
• Filed: 12/03/2002
• Issued: 01/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Boutault, Romuald
• Primary Examiner(s): Borissov; Igor N.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ERB, NATHAN
• Application Number:
  US10/308,497
• Publication Number:
  US 20030110141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,869 Days
• Field of Search: 705/400
• US Class Current: 705/400
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination

Abstract

A method and system for computing a cost estimate for a company that may be the client of a supplier providing information system equipment and consulting. An estimate is calculated according to a model with input characterizing circumstances of the client. The program collects client profile information and costs that the client knows. Other costs that the client does not know are read from a local database storing costs known by other clients with similar profiles. A remote database accessible by any client is updated by cost estimate information at each new cost estimate execution by a client.

Claims

1. A computerized method for computing a cost estimate, said method comprising the steps of:

collecting user profile information concerning a user;

collecting a first set of costs known by said user;

reading from database records of a local database that include profile information concerning previous users and that include a second set of costs unknown by said user and known by the previous users, the second set of costs having been uploaded by the previous users after calculating cost estimates using the computerized method, wherein the previous users have profile information similar to the collected user profile information;

calculating the cost estimate using the first set of costs and the second set of costs;

displaying the calculated cost estimate; and

after calculating the cost estimate using the computerized method, sending, to a reference database, a message comprising the collected user profile information concerning the user and the first set of costs known by the user to enable updating of the local database for future users.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of reading comprises the steps of:

computing, for each cost unknown by said user, a mathematical distance between the collected user profile information and the profile information in each database record read; and

selecting a database record having minimum computed mathematical distance.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the mathematical distance is a vector distance with coordinates dependent upon the collected user profile information, said vector distance being weighted according to cost.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the local database is a relational database having a query language, and wherein the step of reading comprises a step of performing a query to find records in the local database that include a cost unknown by said user and known by at least one of the previous users, and include profile information closest to the collected user profile information.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, before the step of sending, a step of marking as ‘

known’

in the message cost information which has been collected, and marking as ‘

unknown’

cost information which has been read from the local database.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of sending is performed upon a request entered by an operator of a computer calculating a user cost estimate.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the message further comprises a result of the cost estimate calculating step and the second set of costs.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the message further comprises administrative information including an identification of cost estimate calculation step execution and an identification of a level of the local database read for the cost estimate calculation step.

9. The method of claim 1, further including the step of replicating the local database from the reference database.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of collecting user profile information, collecting a first set of costs, reading from database records, calculating a cost estimate, displaying the calculated cost estimate, and sending a message are performed by a computer, said computer in communication with a remote server, said remote server performing the steps of:

receiving, from the computer, the message comprising the collected user profile information and the first set of costs;

updating, according to information included in the message, the reference database to create a new level of database content; and

downloading the new level of database content to the computer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of downloading is performed upon a request entered by an operator of the remote server.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising, before the step of updating, the remote server performing a step of removing user identity information from the collected user profile information included in the message.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising, before the step of updating, the remote server performing the steps of:

reading, from the message, the collected user profile information, the second set of costs, and a result of the cost estimate calculating step; and

automatically checking coherence between the result of the cost estimate calculating step and the collected user profile information according to pre-established business rules.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising, after the step of downloading, the remote sever performing the steps of:

reading, from the message, administrative information including an identification of a cost estimate calculation step execution and an identification of the database level read for the cost estimate calculation step execution; and

archiving the content of the message in a database connected to the remote server.

15. A computer program for computing a cost estimate, the computer program stored on a computer readable medium, comprising:

a collecting code segment that collects user profile information concerning a user and a first set of costs known by the user;

a reading code segment that reads from database records of a local database that include profile information concerning previous users and a second set of costs unknown by said user and known by the previous users, the second set of costs having been uploaded by the previous users after calculating cost estimates using the computer program, wherein the previous users have profile information similar to the collected user profile information;

a cost estimate calculator code segment that calculates the cost estimate using the first set of costs and the second set of costs;

a display code segment that displays calculated cost estimates; and

a transmitting code segment that transmits the collected user profile information concerning the user and the first set of costs known by the user to enable updating of the local database for future users of the computer program.

16. A computer readable medium storing a computer program for computing a cost estimate, comprising:

a collecting code segment that collects user profile information concerning a user and a first set of costs known by the user;

a reading code segment that reads from database records including profile information concerning previous users and a second set of costs unknown by said user and known by the previous users, the second set of costs having been updated by the previous users after calculating cost estimates using the computer program, wherein the previous users have profile information similar to the collected user profile information;

a cost estimate calculator code segment that calculates the cost estimate using the first set of costs and the second set of costs;

a display code segment that displays calculated cost estimates;

a transmitting code segment that transmits the collected user profile information concerning the user and the first set of costs known by the user;

a receiving code segment that receives the collected user profile information concerning the user and the first set of costs known by the user;

an updating code segment that updates, according to the transmitted information, the database records to create a new level of database content for future users of the computer program; and

a downloading code segment that downloads the new level of database content.