International Business Machines Corporation

Charles Sidney Atkinson

William Reilly

Anandakrishnan Narayanan

Yi-Wen Tan

Deirdre A Wessel

Brad M Altice

Allen J Scribner, Iii

Daniel P Huskey

Derdre A Wessel

Leonid Derbinsky

William Richard Sadek

Docelyn Lordeus

Aparicio I Ranghel

Edward H Carter

Jorge M Salas

Robert J Banker

Hima K Goverdhana

Ji Yuan Bian

Shrish Javalkar

A method, system and program product for optimally managing fulfillment of orders that are channeled through a diversified manufacturing environment that utilizes different process models, product nomenclatures and communication methods. The method includes sending by a contemporary fulfillment application to a legacy application a scheduling request for an order that includes a code recommending that the order is deemed eligible for fulfillment by a specific manufacturing site. The method further includes returning by the legacy application a scheduling response providing scheduling information for the order and confirming that the order is to be fulfilled by the specific manufacturing site. The method further includes transmitting a shipment request by the contemporary fulfillment application to a contemporary production application for routing delivery of the order to the specific manufacturing site and receiving a shipment response from the contemporary production application providing a delivery status of the order.

Method, system and program product for managing fulfillment of orders

A process and methodology are disclosed to maintain consistency across disparate systems. An interface is provided comprised of a fulfillment client in which to place orders, a middleware to pass data, manufacturing and shipment systems to process orders, and a shipping and packing information repository system to house data. The methodology implements, inter alia, remote function calls to the asynchronously/synchronously interfaced systems during defined points of order processing to establish the status of the systems availability and the status of the order at the exact time of a predetermined activity. Also, information regarding the order status is posted as both a displayed on-line message to a user and in distinct status fields for future review. Furthermore, this method dynamically reacts to failed communication through the resetting of orders to a previous state to ensure data integrity across the distributed computing environment.

Process and methodology to maintain consistency across disparate interfaced systems

A method for translating a stock keeping unit (SKU) hierarchy in a customer order to a type-model-feature (TMF) structure in a vendor's order fulfillment system. A translation table relating the SKU hierarchy and TMF structure is defined. The SKU hierarchy includes SKU numbers that identify a configurable part and configurable options that specify a product. An initial order for the product includes the SKU hierarchy. Using the translation table, the SKU numbers are translated into an instance of the TMF structure. A multi-value characteristic is populated with values that include the SKU numbers and subline identifiers. A second order for the product is created that includes the instance of the TMF structure and subline values associated with the SKU number that identifies the configurable part.

Translating an order's stock keeping unit hierarchy to an order fulfillment structure

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Apex, NC, United States of America

Charles Sidney Atkinson