Storage medium for storing product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data

• US 20030055661A1
• Filed: 09/17/2001
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford Management Co.), Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Ishii, Kosuke, Yamazaki, Hiroshi, Sekimoto, Shinya, Suzuki, Kyoko
• Granted Patent: US 7,383,192 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

A value chain flow diagram expresses the flow of money, things, claims, persons, information, services, values or the like related to the lifecycle of products (planning, designing, manufacturing, distribution, sale, use, disposal) which are generated among enterprises, departments of an enterprise, clients, users, stockholders, authentication organizations or regional inhabitants. In the product value chain flow diagram, individual components such as the enterprises, the departments of the enterprise, the clients, the users, the stockholders, the authentication organization or the regional inhabitants are expressed by block shapes such as boxes and circles and the flow of the money, the things, the claims, the persons, the information, the services, the values or the like is expressed by specific symbols or linear or curved arrows labeled with icons. Further, the components which are expressed by blocks are connected with each other.

Claims

1. A storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data in an expression form of a product value chain which are generated between components which are relevant to the lifecycle of a product, wherein the individual components are expressed by block shapes and flow elements are indicated by arrows which are labeled with specified signals or icons, whereby the components indicated by the blocks and the flow elements which are indicated by the arrows are expressed in a combined form.

2. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 1, wherein the components are expressed in a matrix form in which the components are arranged in rows and columns, the components filled in the row direction or the column direction are set as transmitters and the components filled in the column direction or the row direction are set as receivers, whereby the value chains between components are expressed by filling symbols or icons indicative of the flow elements which are made to flow between respective components in corresponding portions of the matrix.

3. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 2, wherein at corresponding portions of the matrix which express the value chains of the components, the magnitude of the flow elements is described in parallel.

4. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 2, wherein the information in the matrix form is read by a computer, and the product value chain flow diagram between the components is automatically prepared.

5. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 3, wherein the information in a matrix form which are expressed in claim 3 is read by a computer, and the product value chain flow diagram which expresses the flows of the money, the things, the claims, the persons, the information, the services, the values or the like between the components such as the enterprises, the departments of the enterprise, the clients, the users, the stockholders, the authentication organizations, the regional inhabitants or the like is automatically prepared.

6. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 4, wherein the product value chain flow diagram in which the rearrangement is performed by selecting an arbitrary component as the center of the chain flow diagram from the components is automatically prepared.

7. A storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 5, wherein the product value chain flow diagram in which the rearrangement is performed by selecting an arbitrary component as the center of the chain flow diagram from the components is automatically prepared.

8. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 4, wherein out of the flow elements which are made to flow between respective components, one or more specified flow elements are selected for displaying or non-displaying.

9. The storage medium which stores a product value chain flow diagram and product value chain data according to claim 5, wherein out of the flow elements which are made to flow between respective components, one or more specified flow elements are selected for displaying or non-displaying.