Aspen Technology, Inc.

Stephen J Doyle

Vladimir Mahalec

Girish Navani

Donald A Dietrich

Michael D Allen

Ken Rosen

Wayne C Bartel

Charles C Moore

Michael P Evans

Linus Hakimattar

Nigel Johnson

Kevin Maher

Vip Patel

Barry H Cohn

Khaled Zayadine

Currently lacking are effective and accurate tools to help petroleum traders and logistics personnel to make better decisions, collaborate in real-time and negotiate deals in a private and secure environment. The present invention addresses this and other needs in the industry. In particular, the present invention provides automated workflow management for a series of workflow tasks by mapping the workflow tasks to a collaborative workflow process comprising: roles, users, business processes and computer executable activities. A workflow object is received that supplies information used to set particular attributes of the roles, the users, the business activities and the computer executable activities of the collaborative workflow process. Information and data objects are shared electronically among the users performing certain of the roles. At least one of the activities is automatically executed, such that the workflow is automatically managed.

Computer system for providing a collaborative workflow environment

Currently lacking are effective and accurate tools to help petroleum traders and logistics personnel to make better decisions, collaborate in real-time and negotiate deals in a private and secure environment. The present invention addresses this and other needs in the industry. In particular, the present invention provides a non-client computer resident method optimizes vessel scheduling by aggregating vessel information. At least some of the vessel information is automatically downloaded from an electronic source. The aggregated vessel information is stored in a vessel information database comprising vessel information database records. Information is obtained about a potential vessel contracting transaction. The vessel information database is searched in a real-time manner to match the potential vessel contracting transaction to at least one of the vessel information database records such that the vessel contracting transaction is optimized. At least one of the optimized vessel contracting transactions is then reported. Optimization factors used to produce the optimized vessel contracting transactions include lowest cost and fastest delivery.

Computer method and apparatus for vessel selection and optimization

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Southborough, MA, United States of America

Stephen J Doyle