Virtual private supply chain

• US 8,661,021 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2011
• Issued: 02/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: PTC Inc.
• Original Assignee: PTC Inc.
• Inventors: Davies, John Merrow, Casamento, Gary, Kumar, Mahendra, Hilferty, Thomas J., Tejolesmono, Lisayani, Orchard, Frank E., Flon, Lawrence, Anderson, Michael Gary, Casamento, Leslie
• Primary Examiner(s): ALAM, SHAHID AL
• Application Number:
  US13/247,151
• Publication Number:
  US 20120017082A1
• Time in Patent Office: 881 Days
• Field of Search: 713/156, 715/738, 705/26, 705/35, 709/203, 709/207, 709/217, 709/218, 709/231, 707/716, 707/770, 707/802
• US Class Current: 707/716
• 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 comprising:

a supply chain data store operable to store a plurality of supply chain data items received from one or more supply chain members;

at least one processor; and

a storage medium tangibly storing thereon program logic for execution by the at least one processor, the program logic comprising;

logic executed by the at least one processor for a data acceptor for receiving one or more supply chain data items from the one or more supply chain members; and

logic executed by the at least one processor for a data accessor for selectively presenting one or more supply chain data items in the plurality of supply chain data items stored in the supply chain data store to one or more viewing supply chain members, the selectively presenting being based on access rights associated with the supply chain data items and based on a relationship between the supply chain data items.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the supply chain data store is further adapted to facilitate establishing one or more relationships between a first supply chain data item originating from a first supply chain member and one or more second supply chain data items originating from one or more second supply chain members.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the supply chain data store is further adapted to facilitate establishing an ownership identifier for supply chain data items.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the supply chain data store is further adapted to facilitate establishing one or more access rights to supply chain data items.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the data acceptor is further adapted to transform the received supply chain data to conform with one or more supply chain schema.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the data acceptor is further adapted to validate the transformed supply chain data.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the data acceptor is further adapted to load the validated supply chain data into the supply chain data store.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the data accessor implements row-level supply chain security.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the row-level supply chain security employs at least one of secure socket layers (SSL), digital certificates and encryption.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more supply chain members are configured in a hub and spoke configuration, with the supply chain members located at spokes and the data acceptor, the data accessor and the supply chain data store are located at the hub.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein at least one supply chain member implements a connection stream.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the connection stream is adapted to facilitate making communications between the hub and the spoke implementing the connection appear as a stream.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the connection stream is further adapted to facilitate sending, receiving and/or validating BIOs.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the connection stream is further adapted to facilitate selecting an encryption level to be applied to data communicated between the hub and the spoke implementing the connection stream.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein one or more supply chain data items may be persisted at one or more spokes.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the persisted items are stored as BLOBS (Binary Large Objects).

17. Non-transitory computer readable storage media tangibly storing thereon computer readable instructions for a system comprising:

a data accepting component operable to receive a plurality of supply chain data items from one or more supply chain members;

a supply chain data storing component operable to facilitate storing one or more supply chain data items received from one or more supply chain members; and

a data accessing component operable to selectively present one or more supply chain data items in the plurality of supply chain data items stored by the supply chain data storing component to one or more viewing supply chain members, the data accessing component operable to selectively present the one or more supply chain data items based on access rights associated with the supply chain data items and based on a relationship between the supply chain data items.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage media of claim 17 wherein the supply chain data store is further adapted to facilitate establishing one or more relationships between a first supply chain data item originating from a first supply chain member and one or more second supply chain data items originating from one or more second supply chain members.

19. A method comprising:

accepting, using a computing device, a plurality of supply chain data items from one or more supply chain members;

establishing, using the computing device, one or more ownership identifiers for the supply chain data items;

establishing one or more access permissions for the supply chain data items;

transforming the supply chain data items to conform with one or more supply chain schema;

validating, using the computing device, the transformed supply chain data items;

storing, using the computing device, the validated supply chain data items in a supply chain data store;

establishing one or more relationships between supply chain data items received from two or more supply chain members; and

selectively permitting access, using the computing device, to one or more supply chain data items in the plurality of supply chain data items based on at least one of the ownership of the supply chain data item, the one or more relationships associated with the supply chain data items, and the one or more access permissions associated with the supply chain data items.

20. Non-transitory computer readable storage media tangibly storing thereon computer readable instructions for a method comprising:

accepting, using a computing device, a plurality of supply chain data items from one or more supply chain members;

establishing, using the computing device, one or more ownership identifiers for the supply chain data items;

establishing one or more access permissions for the supply chain data items;

transforming the supply chain data items to conform with one or more supply chain schema;

validating, using the computing device, the transformed supply chain data items;

storing, using the computing device, the validated supply chain data items in a supply chain data store;

establishing one or more relationships between supply chain data items received from two or more supply chain members; and

selectively permitting access, using the computing device, to one or more supply chain data items in the plurality of supply chain data items based on at least one of the ownership of the supply chain data item, the one or more relationships associated with the supply chain data items, and the one or more access permissions associated with the supply chain data items.