FR3093212A1 - COOPERATIVE OPTIMIZATION OF STOCKS FOR INTEGRATIVE MANAGEMENT OF A SUPPLY CHAIN - Google Patents

Abstract

COOPERATIVE OPTIMIZATION OF STOCKS FOR INTEGRATIVE MANAGEMENT OF A SUPPLY CHAIN According to the invention, in an inventory rebalancing process, customers holding separate stocks are recorded, each as individual distributors of stock level data, and in In addition, separate carrier customers are also registered, each as individual carriers of transmission capacity. Then, an indication of an excess stock status of a specified item is received from one of the stock-holding customers. At the same time, an indication of a deficit stock status of the specified item is received from another of the stock-holding customers. In response, one of the carrier customers is identified as indicating sufficient excess capacity to support the transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficit stock status, a message is sent to the customers indicating the status. , and the identified carrier customer is instructed to transport the specified item in the specified quantity, from the customer among the stock-holding customers indicating the excess stock status to the customer among the stock-holding customers indicating a deficit stock status. Fig. 1

Description

COOPERATIVE INVENTORY OPTIMIZATION FOR INTEGRATIVE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of invention

The present invention relates to the field of stock level management and more particularly to stock level management within the supply chain.

Description of Related Art

A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product, and the supply chain represents the steps required to get the product or service to the consumer. Supply chain management is a crucial process because an optimized supply chain leads to cost savings and a faster production cycle. Facility logistics management refers to the production and distribution process inside the company, while supply chain management includes suppliers, manufacturers, logistics and transportation companies and retailers who distribute the product to the final consumer. Supply chains include any establishment that is linked to a particular product, including companies that assemble and distribute parts to the manufacturer.

Since the traditional supply chain involves different actors using many different disparate information systems, information sharing among different actors can be difficult. Transparency in the status of a given transaction depends greatly on the willingness and diligence of each actor in the supply chain of the transaction to provide accurate and timely information to each other. In a single transaction, all of this may not seem so complex, but in a supply chain ecosystem, hundreds if not thousands of transactions are in progress at any given time and a large amount of the resources available to the inside the ecosystem – especially with regard to transport and logistics – remain dependent on the state of multiple different transactions.

A supply chain information sharing system aims to provide some transparency into the status of different transactions in a corresponding supply chain. In the context of transparency, the supply chain information system absorbs data from different actors in the supply chain, processes the data absorbed in order to produce an output reflecting the state of the supply chain, and exposes the output produced. to one or more of the actors. In a supply chain that spans a single jurisdiction among only a handful of players, all of this is not of huge consequence, but in a supply chain that spans different jurisdictional boundaries and involves many different players with different policies With respect to data privacy, it can be difficult to maintain both transparency of transactions in the supply chain while not contravening the data privacy policies of both private supply chain actors and government interests public in which the actors reside.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention address gaps in the state of the art with respect to inventory management in a supply chain and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system, and computer program product for the cooperative inventory optimization for integrative supply chain management. According to one embodiment of the invention, separate inventory holding customers are registered, each as individual stock level data deliverers in a stock balancer, and further, separate carrier customers are also registered as as individual carrier capacity diffusers in the stock rebalancer. Next, an indication of an overstock status of a specified item is received from one of the inventory holding customers. Simultaneously, an indication of a low stock status of the specified item is received from another of the stock holding customers. In response to receiving indications of both overstock and understock statuses for the specified item, one of the carrier customers is identified as indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the item. specified in a quantity indicated by the low stock status. As such, a message is sent to customers indicating overstock, understock and excess capacity states. Accordingly, the customer identified among the carrier customers is ordered to transport the specified item in the quantity indicated, from the customer among the customers holding the stock indicating the excess stock condition to the customer among the customers holding the inventory indicating a condition shortfall stock.

According to one aspect of the embodiment, a table of precedence rules is loaded and the rules are evaluated with respect to data characterizing at least one of the customers and at least one of the states of overstock, understock and excess capacity. As a result, the order given to the customer identified among the transport customers to transport the specified item can be overridden in response to the evaluation. According to another aspect of the embodiment, multiple of the carrier customers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficient inventory status are identified, and a single identified carrier customers is then selected based on an assigned priority value. Alternatively, multiple of the carrier customers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficient inventory status are identified, and then only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on a determined highest amount of excess capacity identified within the multiple customers among the carrier customers.

According to yet another aspect of the embodiment, an indication of a short inventory status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short inventory status is selected to receive the overstocked items based on a priority assigned to one of the customers having the understocked status. Alternatively, however, an indication of a short stock status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers with the short stock status is selected to receive the over stock items in based on a closest geographic proximity to the customer among the customers having the deficient stock status with the customer having the overstock status.

According to another embodiment of the invention, an inventory management data processing system is configured for inventory rebalancing. The system includes a host computing platform consisting of one or more computers, each having memory and at least one processor. The host computing platform includes a first communication coupling over a computer communication network with different remote computer systems, a first subset of the different remote computer systems corresponding to individual inventory holding customers and providing inventory level information for different inventory items at different geographic locations and tracked by respective ones of the remote computer systems, and a second subset of the different remote computer systems each broadcasting a transport capability of corresponding carrier customers, each capable of transporting items from one of the various geographical locations to another of the geographical locations.

The system further includes a stock rebalancing module. The module includes computer program instructions executing in the memory of the host computer platform. The instructions register the stock holding customers each as individual stock level data deliverers, and additionally record the carrier customers each as individual carry capacity deliverers in the stock rebalancer, receive, from one of the inventory-holding customers, an indication of an overstock condition of a specified item and simultaneously receive, from another of the inventory-holding customers, an indication of a overstock status of the specified item. The computer program instructions further enable responding to receipt of indications of both overstock and understock statuses for the specified item by identifying one of the customer carriers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transporting the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status, sending a message to customers indicating the overstock, understock and excess capacity statuses, and directing the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in the specified quantity, from the customer among the customers holding the inventory indicating the overstock status to the customer among the customers holding the inventory indicating the understock status.

Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The aspects of the invention will be realized and obtained by means of the elements and combinations indicated in particular in the appended claims. It should be understood that both the general description which precedes and the detailed description which follows are only given by way of example and explanation and do not limit the invention, as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and form a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. The embodiments illustrated herein are preferred herein, it being understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the specific arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein:

is a pictorial illustration of a cooperative inventory optimization process for integrative supply chain management;

is a schematic illustration of a data processing system configured for cooperative inventory optimization for integrative supply chain management; and,

is a flowchart illustrating a cooperative inventory optimization process for integrative supply chain management.

Embodiments of the invention relate to cooperative inventory optimization for integrative supply chain management. According to one embodiment of the invention, different states of understock and overstock are detected within a cooperative network of a supply chain in which different actors independent of the network, including customers holding inventory and carriers, share capacity and inventory information. In response to detecting an overstock status for one of the inventory holding customers, other inventory holding customers having respective understock statuses are identified, and one of the respective inventory holding customers having a deficient stock condition is selected to receive the excess stock. Then, one of the carriers, which has released enough capacity to transport the overstock items, from the stock-holding customer with the overstock status to the stock-holding customer with the understock status, is selected. In this way, the stock balance of the item can be optimally maintained within the supply chain.

For further illustration, Figure 1 pictorially depicts a cooperative inventory optimization process for integrative supply chain management. As shown in Figure 1, different inventory holding customers 120 for different inventory holding facilities 110 broadcast in an inventory optimization logic 180, different inventory states 130A, 130B for different items in the inventory of the respective one inventory holding facilities 110. These various inventory states 130A, 130B include both a short inventory state 130A in which an insufficient amount of a particular item is present in inventory relative to that required, and a state excess inventory 130B in which more than enough of a particular item is present in inventory than is required. Additionally, different independent carriers 140 broadcast capacity information 150 into the inventory optimization logic 180 in terms of an amount of volumetric space available to accommodate transportation of items within a geographically defined area. .

The inventory optimization logic 180 responds to the detection of an overstock condition 130B at one of the inventory holding customers 120 for a specified item by identifying one or more other inventory holding customers 120 broadcasting a short inventory condition 130A for the same specified item, and one or more carriers 140 releasing sufficient excess capacity 150 to transport the specified item in the quantity indicated by the excess inventory status 130B to one or more of the customers holding inventory 120 releasing the shortfall status 130A. Inventory optimization logic 180 then selects one of the inventory-holding customers 120 broadcasting an understock status 130A to receive the excess quantity of the specified item from the inventory-holding customer 120 broadcasting the understock status. excess stock 130B.

In this regard, the inventory optimization logic 180 may select one of the inventory holding customers 120 broadcasting the deficient inventory status 130A to receive the excess quantity of the specified item based on a value of highest priority assigned to customers holding stock 120 broadcasting the state of shortfall stock 130A. The priority value, for example, may include a least recently selected customer from the 120 inventory-holding customers, a least frequently selected customer from the 120 inventory-holding customers, a highest shortfall of the specified item, or the lacks the lowest of the specified item, in order to remove the deficient stock status 130A, or a customer geographically closest among the stock-holding customers 120 with the customer among the stock-holding customers 120 broadcasting the status of excess stock 130B, to name a few examples. Furthermore, the inventory optimization logic 180 can also refer to one or more precedence rules 170.

More specifically, the precedence rules 170 receive as input the identity of the specified item subject to the overstock status 130B, the identity of the customer among the customers holding the stock 120 broadcasting the overstock status 130B and the states of shortfall 130A, the identity of the carriers 140 distributing the excess capacity 150 and the costs of a transport by the carriers 140. Insofar as the rules of precedence 170 do not authorize the transport of the specified item of inventory holding customer 120 broadcasting excess inventory status 130B to selected customer among inventory holding customers 120 broadcasting short inventory status 130A using any of potential carriers 140 broadcasting excess capacity 150, the specified item remains in inventory of the inventory holding customer 120 broadcasting the overstock status 130B. Otherwise, the inventory optimization logic 180 transmits a message 160 ordering the transfer of the excess quantity of the specified item to each of the customers holding inventory 120 broadcasting the excess inventory state 130B, towards the customer holding stock 120 broadcasting deficient stock status 130A and selected to receive the excess quantity of the specified item, and to the carrier selected from the carriers 140.

The process described in relation to Figure 1 can be implemented in a data processing system. For further illustration, Figure 2 schematically depicts a data processing system configured for cooperative inventory optimization for integrative supply chain management. The system includes a host computer system 210 hosting the execution of a supply chain information sharing application 270 operable to provide transparent and secure access to data in a knowledge graph 280 from a communication network. computer 220 from different actor information systems 240, 250 running in respectively different servers 230 for different corresponding actors in the supply chain via an information sharing interface 260 adapting the internal messages to the actor information systems 240, 250 for knowledge graph 280 of supply chain information sharing application 270.

Notably, the system still further includes an inventory rebalancer module 300. The inventory rebalancer module 300 includes program code which, when executed in the memory of the host computer system 210, is operable to detect an inventory condition excess of a specified product within knowledge graph 280 as received from an inventory management system 240 corresponding to a particular inventory holding customer. The program code also detects a short stock condition of the product specified within the knowledge graph 280 as received from an inventory management system 240 of a different stock holding customer. The program still further detects an excess capacity condition in the knowledge graph 280 as received from a transportation management system 250 of a specific carrier. Accordingly, the program code enables a message to be sent to the inventory management systems 240 of each of the particular inventory-holding customer and the different inventory-holding customer, and to the transportation management system 250 of the specific carrier, ordering the transfer of excess quantity of specified product from particular stock-holding customer to different stock-holding customers using carrier's excess capacity.

As yet another further illustration of how inventory rebalancing module 300 works, Figure 3 is a flowchart illustrating a cooperative inventory optimization process for integrative supply chain management. Beginning at block 310, an excess stock condition is detected in the knowledge graph in relation to a particular product identifier, with respect to a specific excess quantity and a specific stock holding customer. At block 320, precedence rules are processed to determine whether or not rebalancing is allowed in relation to the particular product identifier, the specific excess quantity, and the specific inventory holding customer. At decision block 330, if the override is not triggered, the process continues at block 340.

At block 340, a list of potential inventory-holding customers broadcasting a short inventory status for the particular product identifier is retrieved from the knowledge graph, and at block 350, one or more of the potential inventory-holding customers are selected to receive all or part of the excess quantity. Next, at block 360, a list of carriers that have released excess capacity in the knowledge graph sufficient to receive the excess quantity is retrieved and each is queried about the ability to transfer the excess capacity from the inventory holding customer. broadcasting the overstock status to the customer selected from the one or more stock holding customers broadcasting the understock status. At block 370, one of the listed carriers is selected, and at block 380, a message is sent to each of the selected carrier or carriers, the inventory-holding customer broadcasting the excess inventory status, and said one or more stock-holding customers broadcasting the short stock status, ordering the transfer of the specified item, from the stock-holding client broadcasting the excess stock status to the selected one of said one or more stock-holding clients broadcasting the stock status shortfall stock. Finally, the process ends at block 390.

The present invention may be embodied in a system, method, computer program product, or any combination thereof. The computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium or media having computer readable program instructions therein or therein to cause a processor to implement aspects of the present invention. The computer-readable storage medium may be a tangible device that can retain and store instructions for use by an instruction executing device. The computer-readable storage medium may be, for example, but is not limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device, an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, a semiconductors, or any suitable combination thereof.

The computer-readable program instructions described herein can be downloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computer-readable storage medium or to an external computer or external storage device via a network . Computer-readable program instructions may run entirely on the user's computer, partially on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partially on the user's computer, and partially on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be supplied to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing device to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute through the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing device, create means for carrying out the functions/acts specified in the flowchart block or blocks and/ or block diagram. These computer-readable program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable storage medium which may instruct a computer, programmable data processing apparatus, and/or other devices to operate in a particular manner, such that the computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises an article of manufacture comprising instructions which implement aspects of the function/act specified in the flow chart block or blocks and/ or block diagram.

The computer-readable program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing device, or other device to cause a series of functional steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable device, or the other device to produce a computer-implemented process such that the instructions executing on the computer, other programmable device, or other device perform the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods, and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or part of instructions, which includes one or more executable instructions for implementing the logical function(s). (s) specified. In some alternate implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur in an order other than that noted in the Figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially simultaneously, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in reverse order, depending on the functionality involved. Note also that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by systems based on special purpose hardware that performs specified functions or acts or implement combinations of computer instructions and special purpose hardware.

Finally, the terminology used herein is intended to describe particular embodiments only and is not intended to limit the invention. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an", and "the" or "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context indicates otherwise. It will also be understood that the terms "includes" and/or "comprising", when used in this specification, specify the presence of features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or or components mentioned, but does not exclude the presence or addition of one or more other characteristics, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and/or groups thereof.

The structures, materials, acts, and corresponding equivalents of any means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claims. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment has been selected and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others skilled in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications. as appropriate for the particular use contemplated.

Having thus described the invention of the present application in detail and with reference to embodiments thereof, it will be apparent that modifications and variations are possible without departing from the scope of the invention defined in the claims. appended as follows.

Claims (18)

Inventory rebalancing process consisting of
registering separate inventory holding customers, each as individual inventory level data deliverers in an inventory rebalancer, and further registering separate carrier customers each as individual transport capacity deliverers in the inventory rebalancer;
receive, from one of the inventory customers, an indication of an overstock condition of a specified item and simultaneously receive, from another of the inventory customers, an indication of an overstock condition low stock of the specified item; and,
in response to receiving indications of both overstock and understock statuses for the specified item:
identify one of the carrier customers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficient inventory status,
send a message to customers indicating overstock, understock and excess capacity statuses, and
order the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in the quantity indicated, from the customer among the customers holding the stock indicating the overstock status to the customer among the customers holding the inventory indicating a short stock status. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:
load a table of precedence rules;
evaluating the rules of precedence with respect to data characterizing at least one of the customers and at least one of the states of excess inventory, insufficient inventory and excess capacity; and,
override the order to the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in response to the evaluation. A method according to claim 1, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on an assigned priority value. A method according to claim 1, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on a determined highest amount of excess capacity identified within the multiple customers among the carrier customers. A method according to claim 1, wherein an indication of a short inventory status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short inventory status is selected to receive the items in excess stock according to a priority assigned to one of the customers having the insufficient stock status. A method according to claim 1, wherein an indication of a short inventory status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short inventory status is selected to receive the items in excess inventory based on a closest geographic proximity to the customer among the customers having the understock status with the customer having the overstock status. An inventory management data processing system configured for inventory rebalancing, the system comprising:
a host computing platform consisting of one or more computers, each having memory and at least one processor, the host computing platform comprising a first communication coupling on a computer communication network with different remote computer systems, a first subset of the different remote computer systems corresponding to individual inventory holding customers and providing inventory level information for different inventory items at different geographic locations and tracked by respective ones of the remote computer systems, a second subset set of different remote computer systems each broadcasting a transport capacity of corresponding carrier clients, each being capable of transporting items from one of the different geographical locations to another of the geographical locations; and
an inventory rebalancer module comprising computer program instructions executing in the memory of the host computing platform and for registering the customers holding inventory each as individual broadcasters of inventory level data, and to further register the carrier customers each as individual distributors of transmission capacity in the stock rebalancer, to receive, from one of the customers holding the stock, an indication of a state of excess stock of a specified item and simultaneously receiving, from another of the inventory-holding customers, an indication of a short inventory status of the specified item, and responding to receipt of the indications of both the overstock statuses and shortfall stock for the item specified in:
identifying one of the carrier customers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficient inventory status,
sending a message to customers indicating overstock, understock, and excess capacity states, and
directing the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in the indicated quantity, from the customer among the customers holding the stock indicating the overstock status to the customer among the customers holding the inventory under the status. A system according to claim 7, wherein the program instructions further perform:
loading a table of precedence rules;
evaluating the rules of precedence with respect to the data characterizing at least one of the customers and at least one of the states of excess inventory, insufficient inventory and excess capacity; and,
overriding the order to the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in response to the evaluation. A system according to claim 7, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on an assigned priority value. A system according to claim 7, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on a determined highest amount of excess capacity identified within the multiple customers among the carrier customers. A system according to claim 7, wherein an indication of a short stock status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short stock status is selected to receive the items in excess stock according to a priority assigned to one of the customers having the insufficient stock status. A system according to claim 7, wherein an indication of a short stock status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short stock status is selected to receive the items in excess inventory based on a closest geographic proximity to the customer among the customers having the understock status with the customer having the overstock status. A computer program product for inventory rebalancing, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having program instructions embedded thereon, the program instructions being executable by a device to cause the device to perform a consists in :
registering separate inventory holding customers, each as individual inventory level data deliverers in an inventory rebalancer, and further registering separate carrier customers each as individual transport capacity deliverers in the inventory rebalancer;
receive, from one of the inventory customers, an indication of an overstock condition of a specified item and simultaneously receive, from another of the inventory customers, an indication of an overstock condition low stock of the specified item; and,
in response to receiving indications of both overstock and understock statuses for the specified item:
identify one of the carrier customers indicating sufficient excess capacity to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the deficient inventory status,
send a message to customers indicating overstock, understock and excess capacity statuses, and
order the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in the quantity indicated, from the customer among the customers holding the stock indicating the overstock status to the customer among the customers holding the inventory indicating a short stock status. A computer program product according to claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:
load a table of precedence rules;
evaluating the rules of precedence with respect to data characterizing at least one of the customers and at least one of the states of excess inventory, insufficient inventory and excess capacity; and,
override the order to the customer identified among the carrier customers to transport the specified item in response to the evaluation. A computer program product according to claim 13, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and a only identified carrier customers are selected based on an assigned priority value. A computer program product according to claim 13, wherein multiple of the carrier customers indicating excess capacity sufficient to support transportation of the specified item in a quantity indicated by the understock status are identified, and a only one of the identified carrier customers is selected based on a determined highest amount of excess capacity identified within the multiple customers among the carrier customers. A computer program product according to claim 13, wherein an indication of a short stock status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short stock status is selected to receive the overstocked items based on a priority assigned to one of the customers having the understocked status. A computer program product according to claim 13, wherein an indication of a short stock status of the specified item is received from multiple different customers, and only one of the customers having the short stock status is selected to receive the overstock items based on a closest geographic proximity to the customer among the customers having the understock status with the customer having the overstock status.