Method and system for monitoring a supply-chain

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/176,585, filed Jul. 7, 2005, which is a continuation U.S. application Ser. No. 09/546,347, filed Apr. 7, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,947,903, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/147,670, filed on Aug. 6, 1999 and is related to U.S. application Ser. No. 09/544,916, filed Apr. 7, 2000, now abandoned. The entire teachings of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.

A typical manufacturing supply chain includes an original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”), which designs and sells equipment such as computers or other electronic equipment. To keep costs down, OEMs often contract out the manufacture of at least some of the individual components of the product, such as electronic boards, to contract manufacturers (“CMs”). The CMs must obtain the parts with which to build the boards, such as resistors and integrated circuits, which are manufactured by component manufacturers or vendors. The components are typically not sold directly to the CMs but rather are sold through distributors.

For example, FIG. 1A illustrates a supply chain 2 as is well known in the art. Included in the supply chain 2 are a distributer 16, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) 12, one or more contract manufactures 14, and one or more vendors 18. As indicated in the figure, each of these sites must communicate with one or more of the other sites as indicated by the arrows.

Each node or link in the supply chain, i.e., each OEMs, distributor, CM and vendor, typically maintains its own private database to track and control inventory, place orders, receive orders, enterprise resource planning (ERP), material requirements planning (MRP), etc. While these supply chain sites share some data, the data is typically maintained in incompatible formats in legacy databases.

The Electronic Data Interchange (“EDI”) standards have been developed to aid in the interchange of information to expedite business transactions by specifying a consistent data interchange format. Yet, in practice, how each supply chain site deals with its external environment, i.e., vendors, CMs, customers, has often been archaic and inconsistent.

Supply chain management is difficult because it depends on the axiom that a business has fundamentally correct processes. Unless the foundation for activity is well thought out, managing the chain further aggravates a company\'s environment. For example, not all of the information needed may be available on the legacy databases. Often, teams of programmers are utilized to implement custom design changes to these legacy databases that become overwhelmingly complex. Whether these changes are implemented by outside consultants or by in-house staff, lack of clear project goals, effective monitoring and performance review constantly plague the process.

The present invention eliminates much of the confusion which results from redesigning one or more complex legacy systems. Instead, legacy systems are left intact, and a data transfer engine (“DTE”) is installed at each site. The DTE monitors the local system continuously, and takes whatever information is available. While a complete picture of the supply chain may not be provided if not all information is available, for example, if a certain attribute is not tracked at a particular site, the DTE takes whatever data is available, cleans up the data, and formats the data into a common format acceptable to a data collection site. The DTE then transmits or uploads the data to the data collection site, which is preferably a distributor or an OEM.

While some custom programming is required to extract the proper information and clean it up, no change to the existing business process is required. The programming that is required for extracting and cleaning the data is minimal compared to the major rewriting or restructuring necessary for previous known methods.

The ability to collect data and lay it out before a user in logically configured views where sources and demands are made visible, and where every view is within two or three mouse clicks away, gives unprecedented power to OEMs and distributors to monitor, analyze and control the supply chain. The present invention provides information management and analysis capabilities at the component level for manufacturers, vendors and distributors operating in partnership to manufacture subassemblies that combine to produce a finished OEM product.

The present invention facilitates the relationships between the OEM, distributor, CMs and vendors (collectively, the “sites”) in the context of raw materials flow through the supply chain. A great benefit of the present invention lies in its ability to aggregate or collect, analyze, and inform multiple parties about the status of materials that move through their shared supply chain, directly influencing the success of each.

Accordingly, a method of monitoring supply chain activity throughout a plurality of supply chain sites, includes extracting, at each supply chain site, supply-related data to be monitored. The data is maintained in plural formats at the supply chain sites. The extracted data is then uploaded to and collected, from each supply chain site, to a data collection center or site, where it is stored in a common format. Upon a user request, a portion of the collected data is formatted, at the data collection site, into one of a plurality of views, responsive to criteria selected by the user, for presentation to the user, the portion of formatted data being dependent on access rights granted to the user\'s supply chain site. Finally, the formatted data view is published to the user\'s supply chain site.

The data collection center comprises a data collector in which the uploaded data is stored, and a publisher for publishing data from the data collector upon request. Each supply chain site has a data storage device for maintaining its own supply-chain data, a data transfer engine (DTE), for transferring the supply-chain data to the data collection center, input means for allowing a user to query the data collector, and a display for displaying data published by the publisher in response to a query.

In one embodiment, the data is translated at each supply chain site before uploading. Alternatively, the data is translated at the data collection site after uploading.

In one embodiment, each supply chain site is scanned at regular intervals for new or changed data. Upon finding new or changed data, the new or changed data are uploaded to the data collection site.

Plural formats can include, but are not limited to, spreadsheets, relational databases and text files. One skilled in the art would recognize that spreadsheets and databases themselves vary from vendor to vendor, and even two implementations using the same vendor\'s spreadsheet or database or text file will have data configured and/or formatted differently.

Data can include, but is not limited to, inventory data, purchase orders and lead time.

Data at the supply chain sites can be stored in legacy databases, that is, databases, spreadsheets, text files, and the like, which exist before implementation of the present invention.

In a further embodiment, the inbound data received from the multiple supply chain sites is monitored at the data collection site. If a problem condition is detected, such as a forecasted or present shortage or surplus, an alert is asserted, for example, by highlighting an alert indicator, such as an alert tab, on a user screen. Other possible alert condition indicators are, for example, a highlighted box or button, or a line of data in one of the screens corresponding to, say, a part number which is in an alert condition.