Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-13
2004-03-23
Picard, Leo (Department: 2125)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S101000, C705S002000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06711449
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ordered product delivery date management system which predetermines production slots for the number of products producible in each operation day, and which allocates a production slots to an ordered product. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improvement of management of exchanging of production slots so as to enable delivery of an ordered product by a delivery date desired by a customer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an automobile production plant produces a wide variety of products on a single production line in order to enhance production efficiency and the like. Respective vehicles to be produced are allocated production slots determined for each operation day according to a production plan or the like. Each vehicle is produced with a plurality of parts such as an engine installed according to specifications, and may also incorporate optional products such as an air conditioner or car audio equipment when completed as a final product. The parts for the engine and the like are almost always commonly used in order to efficiently produce a large variety of vehicles. In other words, the same parts are used to produce different types of vehicles to efficiently produce a wide variety of products with a relatively lower production volume.
However, even if a production slot for a vehicle can be secured as described above, it is meaningless if the parts, such as optional products to be installed in the vehicle, are not provided in time. Such parts are also produced in a production plant in much the same way as the assembled vehicle is produced. For example, a production, sales, supply and demand system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 4-145573 secures some objective systems as a final product as well as production slots for articles configuring the objective systems at the same time so to enable to immediately respond a recommended delivery date of the objective systems to a customer.
The automobile production plant generally adopts a custom manufacturing system which starts to produce a vehicle upon receiving an order from a dealer and a planned manufacturing system which produces vehicles in expectation of some orders from the viewpoint of sales strategies and the like independently of the presence or not of an actual order. Briefly, the custom manufacturing system includes procedures wherein a dealer adds information about its name and the like to vehicle information about a vehicle name, body color, options and the like related to an ordering vehicle and sends the information to a production plant. The production plant secures a production slot which the ordered vehicle can be produced according to the order information received from the dealer. A vehicle deliverable date determined in consideration of the operation day of the secured production slot is given to the dealer as a scheduled delivery date. The vehicle is then assembled in the secured production slot according to the vehicle information and delivered to the ordered dealer on the scheduled delivery date.
From the viewpoint of user satisfaction and manufacturer and dealer reliability, custom manufacturing systems face significant issues in order to deliver a vehicle as soon as possible after receiving an order from a customer and to respond to scheduled delivery date immediately. The following procedure is conventionally followed in an attempt to deliver a vehicle to a customer as soon as possible.
First, orders from a dealer to a production plant are roughly divided among ordered vehicles and potential vehicles. An ordered vehicle refers to a vehicle which is ordered upon actually receiving an order after contracting with a customer, while a potential vehicle refers to a vehicle not yet ordered by a customer. A dealer places an order for an ordered vehicle to the production plant with priority information to request production with a priority added to order information for ordered vehicles. Upon receiving the ordering information as ordered information from the dealer, the production plant secures the earliest production slot among free production slots in view of the ordered information if it has priority information. If no production slot is available, a production slot assigned to a potential vehicle having lower priority is transferred to the ordered vehicle and the potential vehicle is reallocated a later free production slot. Thus, the ordered vehicle is produced with priority and can be delivered by the designated delivery date.
As described above, conventionally a free production slot is retrieved, and if a free production slot is not available, a vehicle having higher priority is allocated a production slot assigned to a vehicle having lower priority so as to achieve early delivery. This procedure was made to immediately provide a reliable delivery date taking into consideration part production slots, thereby improving services to the user.
However, even though in the aforesaid procedure the ordered vehicle has precedence over potential vehicles, the scheduled delivery date provided to the customer might be the earliest in the production plant but not be a production slot before the delivery date desired by the customer.
Even when a the production slot for the vehicle can be secured, if the parts configuring the vehicle can not be procured by the secured date of the production slot, it is necessary to secure a production slot for the vehicle having a later operation day so as to comply with the operation slot of the parts. While the problem of parts shortage can be solved by maintaining a large inventory of parts, such a solution is not realistic.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention was achieved to solve the problems described above. It is an object of the invention to provide an ordered product delivery date management system which enables delivery of a product on an exact delivery date desired by a user.
To achieve the aforesaid object, the ordered product delivery date management system of the invention is an ordered product delivery date management system which allocates production slots for the products producible in every operation day, allocates a production slot to an ordered product designated in received order information, and determines an operation day of the allocated production slot as a deliverable date, and which comprises a production slot database which stores assignment states of respective production slots; and a production management processing means which secures a production slot for the ordered product according to the desired delivery date designated in the order information based on the contents of the production slot database and stores identification information of the secured ordered product and the desired delivery date in correspondence with identification information of the secured production slot; wherein when no unassignment production slot is allocated is available prior to the desired delivery date designated in the order information, and, when a production slot is already secured up to the designated desired delivery date, an operation day of the secured production slot is earlier than the desired delivery date of the ordered product and there is an ordered product for which a production slot is newly securable before or on the same date of the desired delivery date of the ordered product, the production management processing means performs management of exchange for a production slot of a product to allocate the production slot secured for the product to the ordered product designated in the order information.
According to the present invention, the ordered product, for which the production slot is secured by performing the management of exchange of the production slot of the product, can be delivered by the desired delivery date, and the delivery of the other ordered product, which had its production slot exchanged for the former product, can also be delivered by its desired delivery date. Thu
Ishizaki Akira
Miyahara Shunji
Burns Doane , Swecker, Mathis LLP
Picard Leo
Shechtman Sean
Toyota Jidosha & Kabushiki Kaisha
LandOfFree
Ordered product delivery date management system for... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Ordered product delivery date management system for..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ordered product delivery date management system for... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3226069