Relevance Management System for RFP Document Matching

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current methods for determining the relevancy of documents, particularly in the context of contract proposals, are inefficient and often rely on unsubstantiated claims, leading to exaggerated or unverifiable assertions of experience and capabilities, which can result in significant business development costs and reduced proposal win rates.

Innovation Solution

A relevance management system that uses document similarity matching techniques and hierarchical aggregation to establish relationships between project description documents and request for proposal documents, facilitating the identification of relevant experience and capabilities, and enabling the validation, recommendation, and brokering of team member capabilities to streamline business development processes.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If current methods for determining document relevancy are used, then business development processes can proceed, but the methods are inefficient and rely on unsubstantiated claims leading to exaggerated assertions of experience and capabilities

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvereliability of experience claimsVSAvoidproposal development efficiency
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces manual, mechanical review processes with automated computational methods. The system uses computer algorithms to perform document similarity matching, hierarchical aggregation, and relevance scoring, substituting human judgment with automated systems that can process documents efficiently while maintaining reliability through verifiable computational methods.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary relevance management system that acts as a mediator between raw project description documents and proposal requirements. This intermediary system performs document similarity matching and hierarchical aggregation to generate verified relevance assessments, eliminating the need for unsubstantiated claims while maintaining efficient proposal development.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Measurement precision

If document similarity matching techniques and hierarchical aggregation are used, then relevant experience and capabilities can be identified systematically, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprecision of relevance determinationVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies segmentation by breaking down the relevance determination process into distinct hierarchical levels. Project description documents are segmented and organized in a hierarchical structure, allowing the system to perform matching at different levels of abstraction. This segmentation enables precise relevance measurement while managing complexity through modular processing stages.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces hierarchical aggregation as an additional dimension to the relevance determination process. Instead of single-level matching, the system operates across multiple hierarchical levels, aggregating results from lower levels to higher levels. This dimensional approach enhances measurement precision by considering relationships at different granularities while structuring complexity in a manageable hierarchical framework.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Reliability

If verified experience and capabilities are used to increase proposal win rates, then proposal quality improves, but business development costs increase due to systematic validation processes

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecredibility of proposalsVSAvoidbusiness development costs
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The patent enables the system to perform self-service validation by automatically matching project description documents against proposal requirements using document similarity techniques. The hierarchical aggregation process allows the system to self-verify relevance without external intervention, generating credible evidence of experience and capabilities automatically. This automation reduces the need for expensive manual validation processes while maintaining high proposal credibility.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Data Source

PatentUS10395193B2Relevance management system
Publication Date: 2019.08.27 ALEXANDER MIKE
  • US10395193B2 patent drawing
  • US10395193B2 patent drawing
  • US10395193B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A relevance management system for managing relevance of a plurality of request for proposal (RFP) documents with respect to a plurality of project description (PD) documents; receiving a PD document; creating a PD-document decomposition by decomposing the PD document into PD segments; determining an RFP-document-to-PD-segment relevance for an RFP document from the plurality of RFP documents and the PD segments using document similarity processing and a metric; aggregating the RFP-document-to-PD-segment relevance by the PD-document decomposition to produce an RFP-to-PD relevance; and transmitting the RFP-to-PD relevance to an originator of the PD document.