Map based routing from bill of materials

• US 9,741,015 B2
• Filed: 08/26/2013
• Issued: 08/22/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Kohlhoff, Stephan
• Primary Examiner(s): Obaid, Fateh M
• Application Number:
  US14/010,262
• Publication Number:
  US 20150058052A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,457 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0875 Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials

Abstract

A method and system includes a bill of materials stored on a computer readable storage device, listing multiple components to be assembled. A mapping table is stored on a computer readable storage device having rows listing attributes of components of the bill of materials and a routing operation attribute identifying work centers or another unique attribute. A plurality of routing templates stored on a computer readable storage device, the routing templates identifying work centers and routing operations between work centers. A route generator utilizes the mapping table to map components from the bill of materials to a routing template and its operations.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more hardware processors; and

a computer readable storage device, coupled with the one or more processors, the computer readable storage device comprising;

a bill of materials stored on the computer readable storage device, listing multiple components to be assembled;

a mapping table stored on the computer readable storage device having rows listing components of the bill of materials and a routing attribute for each of the components, the mapping table identifying a uniform set of rules valid for a first system and a second system in a manufacturing process to synchronize the first system and the second system by creating a link between a routing of the first system and a routing of the second system, wherein the routing of the first system is structured differently than the routing of the second system;

a plurality of routing templates stored on the computer readable storage device, the routing templates identifying work centers and routing operations between work centers; and

a route generator to map components from the bill of materials to a routing template and its operations using the mapping table;

the computer readable storage device including instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising;

analyzing the bill of materials to identify the components in an order corresponding to an order of assembling the components during manufacture;

linking the components to the mapping table;

determining a first routing template for the first system that best matches the components in the bill of materials based on the linking of the components to the mapping table;

selecting the first routing template from the plurality of routing templates based on the mapping table to generate a routing for the components;

determining a second routing template for the second system that best matches the components in the bill of materials based on the linking of the component to the mapping table;

selecting the second routing, template from the plurality of routing templates based on the mapping table to generate a routing for the components, wherein the first routing template is different than the second routing template; and

modifying the selected second routing template based on the mapping table to generate a routing for the identified components.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the routing templates comprise templates for a manufacturing routing.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the routing templates for manufacturing routing include loops to handle rework.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the routing templates comprise templates for enterprise resource planning routing.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the routing templates for enterprise resource planning routing include work centers for ordering components.

6. The system of claim 1, the instructions further comprising:

determining a number of hits on templates corresponding to the multiple components and selecting the routing template with the most hits to map the components.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the mapping table includes a functional name for each component and the corresponding routing attribute identifying a work center.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein components in the bill of materials are listed in an order of manufacture.

9. The system of claim 8, the instructions further comprising:

determining that a component of the components of the bill of material does not match an operation in the selected routing template; and

inserting the component into the selected routing template based on the order of manufacture in the bill of materials.

10. The system of claim 1, the instructions further comprising:

determining that a component of the components of the bill of material does not match an operation in the selected routing template;

allowing a user to manually add an operation; and

inserting a row in the mapping table corresponding to the component and routing attributes that have been manually added.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein selecting the first routing template from the plurality of routing templates based on the mapping table to generate a routing for the components further comprises:

modifying the selected routing template based on the mapping table to generate a routing for the identified components.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein selecting the first routing template from the plurality of routing templates comprises selecting more than one routing template, and the instructions further comprising:

combining the more than one routing templates to create a new routing template.