Virtual private supply chain

• US 8,032,552 B2
• Filed: 06/12/2009
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: PTC Inc.
• Original Assignee: Servigistics Incorporated (PTC Inc.)
• Inventors: Orchard, Frank E., Flon, Lawrence, Davies, John Merrow, Hilferty, Thomas J., Casamento, Leslie, Tejolesmono, Lisayani, Casamento, Gary, Kumar, Mahendra, Anderson, Michael Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): ALAM, SHAHID AL
• Application Number:
  US12/483,561
• Publication Number:
  US 20090307599A1
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• Field of Search: 707/716, 707/769, 707/713, 707/770, 707/802, 705/35, 705/26, 709/203, 709/207, 709/217, 709/218, 709/231
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• 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: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A generic Internet based system for viewing supply chain data is provided. The system includes an Internet based data viewing engine and a data store that holds both viewable data and metadata associated with the viewable data. The metadata can be employed by the Internet based data viewing engine to control the presentation of the viewable data. The generic Internet based supply chain data viewing engine may be employed in a virtual private supply chain (VPSC). A VPSC includes a data acceptor that can receive supply chain data items from supply chain members, a supply chain data store that can store transformed, validated supply chain data items received from the supply chain members and a data accessor operable to selectively present supply chain data items stored in the supply chain data store to viewing supply chain members. One example of the data accessor is the generic Internet based viewing engine.

Claims

1. A system for viewing data, the system comprising:

an Internet based data viewing engine; and

a data store, where the data store holds at least;

viewable supply chain data; and

metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data, the metadata employable by the Internet based data viewing engine to control, at least in part, the presentation of the viewable data, wherein

the metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data stores information concerning at least one of view heading information, query criteria information, view result information, additional information link information, personalization information, display parameters, and content parameters;

wherein

the Internet based data viewing engine is configured to;

select one or more items of the viewable supply chain data and the associated metadata in response to a user query received over a network; and

display, over the network, the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data on a user interface tangibly displayed on a display device, wherein a presentation of the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data on the user interface is controlled, at least in part, by the metadata associated with the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data.

2. The system of claim 1 where the metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data is employed to select the one or more items of viewable data.

3. The system of claim 2 where the metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data is employed by the Internet based data viewing engine to dynamically control the layout and format of the one or more items of viewable data.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface displays query results and additional information links.

5. The system of claim 4 where the view results are selectively based on dynamically created SQL statements constructed from column names in the view headings.

6. The system of claim 4 where the additional information links are based, at least in part, on a dynamic determination of the presence of related data in one or more interfaces associated with one or more rows returned in the view results.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the data store has a database structure unknown to the Internet based data viewing engine and wherein the Internet based data viewing engine is further configured to adapt itself to the database structure using metadata provided by the user.

8. A method for viewing supply chain data, the method comprising:

extracting supply chain data from one or more supply chain members;

transforming the extracted supply chain data to one or more common formats;

validating the transformed supply chain data;

storing the validated supply chain data in a supply chain data store;

storing metadata associated with the validated supply chain data in the supply chain data store, the metadata employable to control, at least in part, the presentation of the supply chain data wherein the metadata stores information concerning at least one of view heading information, query criteria information, view result information, additional information link information, personalization information, display parameters, and content parameters; and

displaying one or more items of the supply chain data on a user interface tangibly displayed on a display device, wherein a presentation of the one or more items of the supply chain data on the user interface is controlled, at least in part, by the metadata associated with the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data.

9. The method of claim 8 where the supply chain data can be extracted from the one or more supply chain members by at least one of pushing data from the one or more supply chain members, pulling data from the one or more supply chain members, a full extraction of supply chain data, a partial extraction of supply chain data, a periodic extraction of supply chain data, a response to a manual trigger, and a response to a data update trigger.

10. A computer readable medium storing computer executable instructions operable to perform the method of claim 9.

11. A computer readable medium, storing computer executable components of a system comprising:

an Internet based data viewing component; and

a supply chain data storing component adapted to facilitate storing at least;

viewable supply chain data; and

supply chain metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data, the supply chain metadata employable by the Internet based data viewing component to control, at least in part, the presentation of the viewable supply chain data, wherein

the supply chain metadata associated with the viewable supply chain data stores information concerning at least one of view heading information, query criteria information, view result information, additional information link information, personalization information, display parameters, and content parameters;

wherein

the Internet based data viewing component is further adapted to;

select one or more items of the viewable supply chain data and the associated supply chain metadata in response to a user query received over a network; and

display, over the network, the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data on a user interface tangibly displayed on a display device, wherein a presentation of the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data on the user interface is controlled, at least in part, by the supply chain metadata associated with the one or more items of the viewable supply chain data.