Unified Catalog System for Merged Enterprises
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Solution Overview
Problem
In sophisticated companies undergoing mergers or restructuring, internal technical support systems often exist as independent and separate systems, leading to employees being unaware of available resources and experiencing resource wastage due to overlapping services and goods.
Innovation Solution
A unified product catalog system is created using APIs from disparate catalog systems, which imports and configures data to provide a centralized hub for users to order products, eliminating the need for system reconfiguration or merging, and presenting a streamlined service by removing duplicates and suppressing overlapping categories.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple independent catalog systems are maintained after merger, then each system can operate autonomously with its own processes, but employees cannot access all resources and resource wastage occurs due to overlapping services
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a unified catalog system that consolidates multiple independent catalog systems into a single interface. The system imports catalog data from disparate underlying catalog systems, merges duplicate items, and presents a unified catalog to users. This allows employees to access all resources from one system while eliminating the resource wastage caused by maintaining separate independent systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified catalog system serves as a universal platform that can access and display items from multiple different underlying catalog systems. It provides a single interface that handles diverse catalog data sources, enabling employees to search and order from all available resources without needing to know which specific system holds each item.
2Loss of energy
If a unified catalog system integrates data from multiple disparate systems, then resource efficiency improves by eliminating duplicates, but system complexity increases due to data integration requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The unified catalog system acts as an intermediary layer between users and multiple disparate catalog systems. It imports data from underlying systems, standardizes the format, merges duplicates, and presents a unified view. This mediator approach eliminates resource wastage by consolidating data while managing system complexity through a standardized integration interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the integration process into distinct functional modules: data import from underlying systems, duplicate detection and merging, catalog display, and order routing. This segmentation allows the complex integration task to be managed through separate, manageable components that can operate independently.
3Productivity
If employees are required to know multiple separate systems, then each system can be optimized for its specific function, but employee productivity decreases due to the learning curve and complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The unified catalog system provides a universal interface that consolidates access to all catalog items from multiple underlying systems. Employees interact with a single system that handles diverse data sources, eliminating the need to learn multiple separate systems while maintaining the functional optimizations of each underlying system through the unified interface.
4Adaptability or versatility
If overlapping services are maintained across separate systems, then each system can serve its specific business unit, but resource wastage occurs through duplicate inventory and services
Solution Approach 1:
The unified catalog system merges duplicate inventory items and services from multiple underlying systems into a single consolidated view. It detects and consolidates duplicate items while maintaining the ability to route orders to the appropriate underlying system, thereby eliminating duplicate inventory wastage while preserving business unit autonomy.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments for creating a unified catalog include systems and method that import catalog data from one or more underlying catalog systems. The systems configure required fields for order fulfillment and receive a request for at least one selected item from the user. The systems further present at least one required field to the user in response to the request and send an order for the at least one selected item to the one or more catalog systems, the order comprising data from the at least one required field.