Trading Partner Graph for Information Exchange
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing information exchange platforms face challenges in providing real-time supply chain integration, synchronization, and collaboration services across operating units with disparate requirements, standards, languages, and geographic locations, due to the complexity of managing relationships and processing requests efficiently.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a trading partner relationship graph within an information exchange platform allows for the representation and management of relationships among operating units, enabling the system to route and process information accordingly, thereby facilitating efficient exchange and collaboration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the information exchange platform manages relationships and processes requests for all operating units with disparate requirements, then the platform provides comprehensive supply chain integration services, but the complexity of managing relationships and processing requests increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trading partner graph as an intermediary data structure that mediates between the information exchange platform and multiple operating units with disparate requirements. The graph stores predefined relationship templates and routing rules that automatically match trading partners based on their characteristics, eliminating the need for the platform to manually manage complex relationships. This intermediary layer handles the complexity of relationship management while the platform focuses on core information exchange functions.
2Loss of time
If the platform processes all requests from operating units in real-time, then the information exchange is timely and accurate, but the operational costs and processing complexities increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-defining relationship templates, routing rules, and processing workflows in the trading partner graph before actual information exchange occurs. When a request is received, the system quickly matches it against predefined templates rather than creating processing logic in real-time. This allows real-time response to requests while avoiding the operational overhead of dynamic relationship management, significantly improving productivity.
3Reliability
If the platform keeps track of all activities and requirements across the entire information exchange platform, then the information exchange is accurate and secure, but the difficulty of tracking and managing data increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the tracking and management functions by organizing operating units into distinct communities within the trading partner graph, each with its own relationship templates and routing rules. Rather than maintaining a monolithic view of all platform activities, the system divides tracking into modular community-level segments. This segmentation maintains reliability through consistent local rules while reducing the difficulty of tracking by limiting the scope of data that needs to be managed at any one time.
Data Source
AI summary
An information exchange platform referred to as a Trading Grid (TG) may perform relationship-based data processing utilizing a trading partner (TP) graph that describes relationships amongst operating units (OUs) on the TG. When the TG receives a request from an OU to exchange data with a TP, the TG accesses the TP graph and determines a relationship between the OU and their TP as reflected in the TP graph. The TP graph is maintained and controlled by the system independently of the OU and the TP. The TG may route the data based on instructions associated with the relationship that is reflected in the TP graph. The instructions associated with the relationship may specify network based services provided by the TG. An orchestration component may operate to orchestrate the performance of the network based services. The TG then communicates the processed and/or produced data to the TP.