Product Control Data Structures for Supply Chain Workflow Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing supply chain management systems fail to adequately consider the unique characteristics and dependencies of individual products, leading to sub-optimal performance and inefficiencies, particularly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Innovation Solution
A product-specific supply chain is modeled using a control data structure that groups products into segments based on predefined criteria, allowing for customized supply chain rules and decisions to be made at a fine-grained level of detail.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If products are managed individually with customized supply chain rules, then supply chain performance and service levels improve, but system complexity and data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments products into different categories based on demand patterns, service level requirements, and supply chain characteristics. This segmentation allows the system to apply customized supply chain rules to specific product groups rather than managing every product individually, thus improving supply chain performance while controlling system complexity through structured classification.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes key parameters such as service level targets, inventory policies, and supply chain lead times based on product segment characteristics. By dynamically adjusting these parameters according to product category, the system achieves optimized supply chain performance without requiring completely separate management systems for each product, thereby balancing reliability improvement with complexity management.
2Productivity
If fine-grained product-specific analysis is implemented, then productivity and cost optimization improve, but data processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the product portfolio into segments based on demand patterns and supply chain characteristics. This segmentation enables the system to perform fine-grained analysis on representative products within each segment and apply the insights across similar products, achieving productivity improvement without requiring exhaustive analysis of every individual product, thus reducing data processing time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements analysis at the appropriate level of detail for each product segment rather than applying uniform fine-grained analysis to all products. By performing partial analysis focused on key segmentation dimensions and applying results broadly within segments, the system achieves sufficient productivity optimization without the excessive computational burden of complete product-level analysis.
3Ease of operation
If standardized supply chain management is used across all products, then system simplicity is maintained, but service level requirements and cost implications are not optimized
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces segmentation based on service level requirements and supply chain characteristics while maintaining a standardized system framework. This allows the system to remain relatively simple in structure while applying differentiated rules to different product segments, thus achieving service level optimization without completely sacrificing system simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal supply chain management system that can handle multiple product types and service level requirements through configurable parameters and segmentation rules. This multi-functional approach allows standardized system operations to adapt to different product needs, maintaining ease of operation while achieving service level optimization through flexible rule application.
Data Source
AI summary
A product-specific supply chain is modeled and represented in a product control data structure. Each product control data structure includes a plurality of segmentation element identifiers for segmentation elements, and each segmentation element identifier includes a value or characteristic. The product control data structure is published and/or integrated into workflows of systems associated with entities that participate in the product-specific supply chain. The workflows evaluate custom rules based on a given product's segmentation elements and corresponding values or characteristics defined in the control data structure for purposes of making decisions, receiving recommendations for certain decisions, and/or performing actions defined by the custom rules to optimize a given entity's supply chain for a given product. In an embodiment and based on evaluation of the custom rules in view of the control data structure, the decisions, recommendations, and/or the actions are provided.