Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Inventory management
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-04
2001-12-18
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 2163)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Inventory management
C705S001100, C705S007380, C705S002000, C705S014270
Reexamination Certificate
active
06332130
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to the field of supply chain, enterprise and site planning, and more particularly to a system and process for inter-domain planning analysis and optimization using model agents as partial replicas of remote domains.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Supply chain, enterprise and site planning applications and environments are widely used by manufacturing entities for decision support and to help manage operations. Decision support environments for supply chain, enterprise, and site planning have evolved from single-domain, monolithic environments to multi-domain, monolithic environments. Conventional planning software applications are available in a wide range of products offered by various companies. These decision support tools allow entities to more efficiently manage complex manufacturing operations. However, supply chains are generally characterized by multiple, distributed and heterogenous planning environments. Thus, there are limits to the effectiveness of conventional environments when applied to the problem of supply chain planning due to monolithic application architectures. Further, these problems are exacerbated when there is no one “owner” of the entire supply chain.
It is desirable for the next evolutionary step for planning environments to establish a multi-domain, heterogenous architecture that supports products spanning multiple domains, as well as spanning multiple engines and products. The integration of the various planning environments into a seamless solution can enable inter-domain and inter-enterprise supply chain planning. Further, an important function provided by some planning applications is the optimization of the subject environment rather than simply tracking transactions. In particular, the RHYTHM family of products available from I2 TECHNOLOGIES provide optimization functionality. However, with respect to planning at the enterprise or supply chain level, many conventional applications, such as those available from SAP, use enterprise resource planning (ERP) engines and do not provide optimization. It is thus also desirable to expand planning analysis and optimization to the inter-enterprise or inter-domain level to enable planning optimization across the supply chain.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a system and process for inter-domain planning analysis and optimization using model agents as partial replicas of remote domains are disclosed that provide advantages over conventional supply chain, enterprise and site planning environments.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a computer implemented system enables inter-domain analysis. The system includes a domain engine, associated with a first supply chain entity, having a local model representing a supply chain activity of the first supply chain entity. The domain engine is operable to generate a model agent that represents a partial replica of the local model. The system also includes another domain engine, associated with a second supply chain entity, having a local model representing a supply chain activity of the second supply chain entity. The other domain engine is operable to generate a model agent representing a partial replica of the local model. The domain engines are further operable to dynamically expand the respective local models using the remote model agents (e.g., as “plug and play” components) to accomplish local inter-domain analysis. In one aspect, the model agents can be data model agents, object model agents and behavior model agents.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a computer implemented process is provided for inter-domain analysis. A first local model is provided that represents a supply chain activity of a first supply chain entity. A model agent is provided that represents a partial replica of a second local model where the second local model represents a supply chain activity of a second supply chain entity. The first local model is dynamically expanded using the model agent to form an inter-domain model. Local inter-domain analysis is then performed using the inter-domain model.
A technical advantage of the present invention is the provision of model agents that allow domains to dynamically expand local models to locally model remote domains. The domains can obtain and incorporate remote model agents which precludes the local domains from having to guess at an appropriate model for the remote domain. Further, the local domain engine does not have to treat the remote domain as a “black box” but can treat the model agent as another extension of its original local model. The expanded local model thereby enables inter-domain and inter-enterprise analysis and optimization. The local models and model agents can be related to various supply chain activities including manufacturing processes, distribution systems, logistics and sales activities.
Another technical advantage of the present invention is that the partial nature of the model agents allows a domain to expose only that portion of its local model that it desires to expose to a particular remote domain.
Additional technical advantages should be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the following figures, descriptions, and claims.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5255181 (1993-10-01), Chapman et al.
patent: 5381332 (1995-01-01), Wood
patent: 5440697 (1995-08-01), Boegel et al.
patent: 5450317 (1995-09-01), Lu et al.
patent: 5625816 (1997-04-01), Burdick et al.
patent: 5726979 (1998-03-01), Henderson et al.
patent: 5764543 (1998-06-01), Kennedy
patent: 5774876 (1998-06-01), Woolley et al.
patent: 5787283 (1998-07-01), Chin et al.
patent: 5953707 (1999-09-01), Huang et al.
patent: 0 456 249 A2 (1991-11-01), None
patent: 0 615 198 A1 (1994-09-01), None
patent: 0 770 967 A2 (1997-05-01), None
patent: WO 99/10825 (1999-03-01), None
patent: WO 99/10826 (1999-03-01), None
patent: WO 99/17194 (1999-04-01), None
patent: WO 99/63463 A1 (1999-12-01), None
patent: WO 14998 A2 (2001-03-01), None
PEOPLESOFT: Peoplesoft and Red Pepper deliver Supply Chain Collaborator, M2 Presswire, pN/A, May 22, 1997.*
Support of cooperating and distributed business processes. Graw, G.; Gruhn, V.; Krumm, H., Conference Title: Proceedings 1996 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems, pp. 22-31, IEE, Comp. Soc., Press, Los Alamitos, CA., 1996.*
OpenView Mgm't Wares Update. Davis, Beth. Communications Week, v561 p49(2) Jun. 12, 1995.*
Enterprise-wide Management: a paradigm for constructing organizational decision support system. Whitehair, R.C.; Campbell, I.C.; Prabhu, G.M.; Nilakanta, S., IEE, Los Alamitos, CA., Jan. 1993.*
Industrial Dynamics Simulation Models in the Design of Supply Chains. Towill, D.R.; Naim, M.m.; Winker, J., International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, v22n5, pp:3-13, 1992.*
A development framework for distributed artificial intelligence. Alder, R.M.; Cottman, B. H., IEE Comp. Soc., Press, Washinton, D.C., 1989.*
PCT International Search Report, Jan. 29, 1999.
PCT International Search Report, Jan. 27, 1999.
XP-002090169, Mihai Barbuceanu, Rune Teigen, Mark S. Fox, “Agent Based Design and Simulation of Supply Chain Systems,” 0-8186-7967-0/97, IEEE, 1997.
XP-002090170, Mihai Barbuceanu, Mark S. Fox, “Coordinating Multiple Agents in the Supply Chain,” 1080-1383/96, Proceedings of WET ICE '96, IEEE, 1996.
XP-002090171, Fu-Ren Lin, Gek Woo Tan, Michael J. Shaw, “Modeling Supply-Chain Networks by a Multi-Agent System,” 1060-3425/98, Proc. 31st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Science, IEEE, 1998.
XP-002090172, P. Ciancarini, A. Fantini, D. Rossi, “A multi-agent process centered environment integrated with the WWW,” 0-8186-7967-0/97, IEEE, 1997.
XP-002090173, Mark S. Fox, John F. Chionglo, Mihai Barbuceanu, “The Integrated Supply Chain Management System”, Dec. 7, 1993.
Bernd E. Hirsch, Thorsten Kuhlmann, Zbigniew K. Marciniak, Christian MaBow, “Information system concept for the management of distributed production,” 0166-3615/95, 199
Mayer John E.
Notani Ranjit N.
Baker & Botts L.L.P.
Hafiz Tariq R.
i2 Technologies US, Inc.
Irshadullah M.
LandOfFree
System and process for inter-domain planning analysis and... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System and process for inter-domain planning analysis and..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System and process for inter-domain planning analysis and... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2563794