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  Method and system for estimating supply impact on a firm under a global crisisUSPTO Application #: 20070124190Title: Method and system for estimating supply impact on a firm under a global crisis Abstract: The availability of relevant business resources, or supply, during a global crisis or disruption are estimated by using a forecast of a baseline supply of human resources and various forms of infrastructure and raw materials for a firm as input. That forecast is corrected to account for the impact of a crisis or other disruption, and a corrected forecast as output is provided. The corrected forecast reflects changes in the availability of business resources due to the crisis or disruption, dependencies between resources, as well as any mitigating effects resulting from the implementation of mitigation policies. (end of abstract) Agent: Whitham, Curtis & Christofferson, P.C. - Reston, VA, US Inventors: Ching-Hua Chen-Ritzo, Pawan Raghunath Chowdhary, Thomas Robert Ervolina, Dharmashankar Subramanian USPTO Applicaton #: 20070124190 - Class: 705008000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Operations Research, Allocating Resources Or Scheduling For An Administrative Function The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070124190. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to the estimation of changes in the availability of resources for the creation and delivery of goods and/or services resulting from the impact of a global disruption or crisis, including, but not limited to, the circumstances created by a pandemic. [0003] 2. Background Description [0004] Under a disruption or crisis, the availability of resources affecting the production of goods and/or services by a firm may be impacted. It is important for a firm to understand how the availability of various resources necessary for the production and delivery of goods and/or services to their customers may change due to a crisis, or disruptive event, since this will ultimately affect the firm's ability to operate profitably during, and in the aftermath of the crisis. [0005] Examples of the impact that a crisis may have on the availability of resources (also more generally referred to as "supply") include, but are not limited to, the following: [0006] Reduced availability of firm's employees; [0007] Reduced availability of firm's partners' or suppliers' employees; [0008] Reduced availability of infrastructure (potentially including, but not limited to, air, water, road, telecommunications, buildings, information technology and electricity); [0009] Reduced availability of logistics hubs (e.g., international shipping ports and airports); [0010] Reduced availability of raw materials and office supplies/equipment from suppliers; and [0011] Reduced availability of services procured or outsourced by the firm. [0012] Under normal (i.e., non-crisis) conditions, a firm typically considers only a subset of the resources previously listed in its business-as-usual planning process(es). For example, a manufacturing firm may use a process called `material requirements planning` (MRP) for managing its manufacturing process. In MRP, typically only raw materials or parts are considered to be a constraining resource (i.e., physical items used directly in the assembly or production of the final product(s)). The premise of MRP is that a manufacturer can predict the availability of their goods, either for distribution to retailers or delivery to customers, based simply on the availability of the necessary raw materials and parts. Therefore, conventional MRP systems take as input the availability of these raw materials and parts. [0013] Additionally, a manufacturing firm may also use a process referred to as `capacity planning` (CP) to estimate its capacity for producing goods. Typically, in this context, capacity refers to both machine capacity and labor capacity. Therefore, combining MRP with CP, under normal conditions, a manufacturer may consider only machine, labor and raw material/part availability when managing their manufacturing process. While resources such as clean water, electricity, network connectivity, telecommunications and third party logistics services may also be necessary to the manufacturer's operations, they are typically assumed to be unconstrained or otherwise taken for granted under normal conditions. Therefore, these latter such resource types are typically not considered as inputs in MRP or CP systems. [0014] Under disruptive or crisis conditions, however, resources that are not typically considered to be critical or constraining, may become critical or constraining. Thus, the availability of such resources may significantly affect the firm's ability to meet the demand for its product(s). SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0015] A firm may be able to mitigate the potential impact of a crisis on the availability of resources by implementing one or more mitigation plans. For example, in the case of a disruption caused by a hurricane, structural damage to materials stored in warehouses could be reduced by reinforcing or otherwise protecting warehouse windows. In the case of a disruption caused by a pandemic, employees could be provided with vaccinations to reduce the probability of infection. Additionally, employees could be cross-trained so that they have overlapping skills and can `fill in` for absent workers in the event of a crisis. These are all examples of potential mitigation plans. [0016] The present invention provides a method and system for estimating the availability of resources that may affect a firm's business operations as a result of a crisis or disruption, by: [0017] Accounting for how a crisis may impact the availability of resources that a firm typically factors into its conventional business planning processes (e.g., in manufacturing, examples of such conventional processes may include MRP and/or CP) [0018] Accounting for how a crisis may impact the availability of resources that a firm typically does not factor into its conventional business planning processes [0019] Accounting for dependencies between the availability of resources that a firm typically factors into its conventional business planning processes and those that it does not [0020] Assessing how one or more mitigation strategies may impact the aforementioned effects of a crisis on resource availability [0021] Performing at least one of the above for one or more geographical locations and for one or more time periods, accounting for potential dependencies between locations and time periods. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0022] The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which: [0023] FIG. 1 shows the use of a supply model according to the present invention. [0024] FIG. 2 shows a system configured according to the present invention. [0025] FIG. 3 shows a sample output assessing the effect of a crisis on supply according to the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION [0026] The present invention seeks to provide estimates of the impact of crises or otherwise disruptive events on supply by extending and adapting traditional supply estimation techniques by assessing the impact of a disruption on resources that may be assumed to be unconstrained under normal conditions, and which may affect the ability of the firm to produce its product(s) and/or which may impact the availability of resources typically accounted for in business planning under normal conditions. According to the present invention, a computer estimates supply requirements by (i) receiving as input a forecast of a firm's "baseline" supply of human resources, various forms of infrastructure and raw materials, (ii) correcting the forecast to account for the impact of a crisis, while also taking into account the potential effects of one or more mitigation policies, and (iii) providing the corrected forecast of the availability of supply of human resources, various forms of infrastructure and raw materials as output, and (iv) providing an additional output that includes a forecast of the availability one or more resources during said crisis that may not have been included in the said forecast of business resource availability under baseline conditions, whose availability is derived from one or more of the following: the availability of other resources that may have been included in the said forecast of business resource availability under baseline conditions, input parameter values. For example, the availability of resource type "site-open" (described in model details) is derived from the availability of employees and the business policy that determines when a site will be made accessible. As another example, the availability resource type "hub" (described in model details) at one location is derived from the availability of "localxport" resources and human resources in one or more other locations. [0027] The details of the supply estimation model are described next. Supply Model Details [0028] The supply model takes as input the "baseline" availability of each relevant type of resource, in one or more geographical locations and over one or more time periods. This baseline corresponds to the availability of resources under normal, non-crisis conditions. Outputs produced by the present invention may include a time-profile of resource availability over the planning horizon, for each resource type and each geographical location of interest. The types of resources, or supply, that may be considered by the present invention span at least the following three categories: [0029] Human Resources; [0030] Raw Materials; and [0031] Infrastructure, which comprises, without limitation, sub-types such as [0032] "localxport": a measure of availability of infrastructure which has been defined to include Air-travel, Water, Roads, Networks and Electricity [0033] "hub": a measure of the availability of global logistical hubs [0034] "site-open": a measure of the availability of a firm's facilities [0035] "lift": a measure of the availability of the global air freight capacity Details regarding the method for modeling each of the above types of resources are provided in the sections that follow. Human Resources [0036] Human resources, or people, may be modeled as a function of the number of employees that are working on-site, working from home, or absent, in each geographical location in each time period in the planning horizon. These numbers can be obtained, for example, from an existing epidemiological model which captures human behavioral effects. Productivity factors for employees in each of these three states may also be modeled as follows: [0037] X.sub.s,l,t: Fraction of employees working at on-site at location, l, and time, t. [0038] .alpha.: Productivity factor for employees working at site, 0.ltoreq..alpha..ltoreq.1. A default (for example, .alpha.=0.95) may be set. [0039] X.sub.h,l,t: Fraction of employees working at home, at location, l, and time, t. [0040] .beta.: Productivity factor for employees working at home, 0.ltoreq..beta..ltoreq.1. A default (for example, .beta.=0.80) may be set. [0041] X.sub.a,l,t: Fraction of employees absent at site, at location l, and time, t. [0042] S.sub.t,l.sup.people: Baseline supply of people at location l. [0043] S.sub.t,l,adjusted.sup.people: Adjusted supply of people at location l, at time, t, due to the crisis. Thus, the effective availability of employees at location l in time period t is given by: S.sub.t,l,adjusted.sup.people=S.sub.t,l.sup.people*(.alpha.X.sub.s,l,t+.b- eta.X.sub.h,l,t). Human resources can be further categorized by, for example, job type, skill set, industry expertise, years of experience and years of education. The same general approach for estimating the impact of a crisis on human resource availability would apply in these cases. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method and system for estimating supply impact on a firm under a global crisis Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method and system for estimating supply impact on a firm under a global crisis patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. 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