Shipment Document Decoupling for Stable Transportation Planning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing transportation planning vehicle scheduling (TPVS) systems suffer from redundant data, instability, and inefficient vehicle usage due to the integration of shipment activities within sales order data structures, making it difficult to split shipment quantities and manage changes without invalidating the transportation plan.
Innovation Solution
A new model where shipment documents are stored independently of sales orders, allowing the TPVS system to manage and alter shipments without preexisting orders, reducing redundancy and enhancing stability by storing shipment activities in a dedicated document structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If shipment activities are stored within sales order data structures, then integration between orders and shipments is maintained, but redundant data is created and memory usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent separates shipment activities from sales order data structures into independent shipment documents. This segmentation eliminates redundant data storage while maintaining the necessary relationships through references, directly resolving the contradiction between integration and data redundancy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts shipment activities out of the sales order data structure and stores them in separate shipment documents. This extraction removes the harmful redundancy while preserving the functional relationship between orders and shipments through document references.
2Reliability
If shipment activities are integrated within sales orders, then order-shipment relationship is maintained, but transportation plan stability deteriorates when orders change
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting shipment documents from sales orders into separate entities, the patent allows independent modification of orders without automatically invalidating transportation plans. The relationship is maintained through references, but changes to one do not force changes to the other, thereby stabilizing the transportation plan.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces shipment documents as intermediary entities between sales orders and transportation plans. These intermediaries buffer the direct relationship, allowing orders to change without directly invalidating transportation plans, thus maintaining stability while preserving the order-shipment relationship.
3Productivity
If TPVS system needs to split shipment quantities, then vehicle usage efficiency improves, but the system lacks sufficient rights to split sales orders
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts shipment quantity management from the sales order structure into independent shipment documents. This gives the TPVS system full authority to split and modify shipment quantities without needing rights to alter the original sales orders, thereby enabling efficient vehicle usage while maintaining order integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses shipment documents as intermediary entities that the TPVS system can freely manipulate, including splitting quantities. This intermediary layer provides the necessary adaptability for the TPVS system to optimize vehicle usage without requiring permissions to modify sales orders directly.
4Quantity of substance
If shipment documents are stored independently of sales orders, then memory usage is reduced and performance improves, but the complexity of managing separate documents increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts shipment data from sales orders into separate documents, reducing memory usage by eliminating redundancy. While this creates separate documents, the standardized structure and automated relationships manage the complexity, making the trade-off worthwhile for performance improvement.
Data Source
AI summary
A new model for transportation planning vehicle scheduling (TPVS). A database table for shipment documents independent of an order for goods, e.g., a sales order is created. When an order for goods is received, the database table is populated with a shipment document corresponding to, but independent of, the order for goods. This shipment document is owned by the TPVS system.