Patent Application
20080126164
The invention relates to supply chain management. More specifically, the invention relates to techniques for improving order fulfillment logistics.
Supply chain management (“SCM”) systems are important tools that help businesses manage their workflow, plan future operations, meet obligations and reduce certain costs. An SCM system monitors goods, materials and services related to the process of turning raw materials into finished products and then delivering them to a customer. In some industries, every step of the process is overseen by a single SCM system, while in other industries, several successive supply chains deal with portions of the process (the “finished product” of an earlier supply chain is the “raw material” of a succeeding chain).
One of the goals of supply chain management is to reduce waste of time, materials and activity in the production process. For example, a manufacturer may wish to avoid keeping an excessive stockpile of raw materials or maintaining a large inventory of finished product, but these desires must be balanced against the risk of running out of raw materials or being unable to fulfill a large order. SCM is a complex, multi-faceted problem. For example, the general desire to avoid keeping a stockpile of raw materials may be tempered by the opportunity to obtain one of the materials at a favorable price. Uncertain or unpredictable conditions such as weather or political turmoil can also affect a production process; a good SCM may assist with modeling and planning for such contingencies.
Since supply chain management systems affect the production process, even small improvements in management performance, multiplied by the volume of the production channel, can yield large benefits.
Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements. It should be noted that references to “an” or “one” embodiment in this disclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and such references mean “at least one.”
Embodiments of the invention analyze orders for multiple different items and attempt to fulfill the orders with material from a single physical location. Orders may be subject to additional constraints, and these further constraints may also be considered when searching for a single source. If no appropriate single source can be found, strategies to permit single-source fulfillment are designed and ranked, and one of the strategies may be selected for implementation.
When an order 170 for a plurality of different items arrives from a customer 180, the SCM system 110 processes the order 170 and other information in database 130 to create a set of locations that handle all of the different items in the order, and then searches the set of locations to find a location that can supply the requested quantities of all of the items in the order. In
The locations of the set are examined in turn to determine whether a location can supply the requested quantities of all of the ordered items (220). This determination may take into account future expectations: for example, a location may satisfy this test even if its current inventory of an item is insufficient to fulfill the order, as long as its inventory is forecast to be adequate when the order must be shipped. If such a location is found, an embodiment may check other constraints of the order (235), and if the constraints are satisfied (240), the order is confirmed for fulfillment from the location (255). If the other constraints are not satisfied, an embodiment may propose alternate conditions that would permit the order to be fulfilled from the location (245), and if the proposed alternate conditions are accepted (250), the order is confirmed (255). Other constraints are discussed in greater detail below. Some embodiments may not check such constraints, so operations and tests 235-250 are shown in dashed lines.
If no location of the set can supply the requested quantities of all of the ordered items (220), an embodiment may plan a strategy to enable one location to fulfill the order (225). Tactics that a strategy planner may use are discussed below. If the strategy is accepted (230), an embodiment may proceed to check other constraints, as described above, and confirm the order if the constraints are met (or proposed alternate conditions are accepted).
If no planned strategy is accepted, or no proposed alternate conditions (if any) are accepted, it is not possible to fulfill the order from a single location (260), so alternate methods of fulfilling the order should be pursued.
The operations outlined above with reference to
In general, fulfillment of orders for goods and/or services may be subject to a variety of constraints that are familiar to logistics personnel. For example, large or heavy items may be restricted from certain transport modalities, or may require special delivery permits or other arrangements. For other items, legal restrictions may apply to prevent sales or transfers to customers or other recipients in certain jurisdictions. As mentioned in the discussion of
Many supply chain management (“SCM”) systems incorporate a rule-based planning engine to design one or more strategies to achieve business goals.
A system may also include a hardware interface 350 for displaying information on a monitor 352 and/or receiving user input from peripherals such as keyboard 355 and mouse 358. A network interface 360 permits the system to exchange information with other systems over a local area network (“LAN”), a wide-area network (“WAN”) or other type of distributed data network such as the Internet. A mass storage interface 370 permits the system to read and write data, such as inventory and production information, rules for the rule-based system, and so forth, on a non-volatile storage medium such as a hard disk 380. The various parts of the system communicate over one or more channels represented collectively here as system bus 390.
A rule-based strategy planner operates by modeling a “start” situation and searching for a sequence of actions that lead to a desired “finish” situation. The actions may be expressed in terms of “rules” such as, “if a desired quantity of an item is unavailable then order the item from a supplier.” Rule-based systems often operate recursively, breaking a high-level problem down into a sequence of sub-problems and then attacking each sub-problem individually. A rule-based system can help identify strategies to enable an order for multiple different items to be filled from a single location, according to embodiments of the invention.
In
In
The rules described with reference to
It is appreciated that an “order,” as described above, may be a request from a customer to obtain goods and/or services from a supplier. However, for the purposes of embodiments of this invention, orders also include any other manifestation of desire to obtain multiple different items or services at a destination. For example, during the strategy planning process of a supply chain management system, an intermediate sub-problem of obtaining multiple different items at an intermediate warehouse or manufacturing facility may arise. An embodiment of the invention can be used to find an efficient solution to this sub-problem by shipping the multiple different items from a single location to the intermediate warehouse or facility.
An embodiment of the invention may be a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions which cause a programmable processor to perform operations as described above. In other embodiments, the operations might be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic. Those operations might alternatively be performed by any combination of programmed computer components and custom hardware components.
A machine-readable medium may include any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g, a computer), including but not limited to Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), Read-Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), and Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM).
The applications of the present invention have been described largely by reference to specific examples and in terms of particular allocations of functionality to certain hardware and/or software components. However, those of skill in the art will recognize that fulfillment of orders for multiple different items from a single location can also be achieved by software and hardware that distribute the functions of embodiments of this invention differently than herein described. Such variations and implementations are understood to be captured according to the following claims.
