Patent ID: 7280973
Filing Date: 2007-10-09
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. An article for displaying a supply-chain collaboration between supply-chain participants, the supply-chain participants being members of a business community and the supply-chain participants interacting according to a predefined consecutive order, the article comprising a tangible machine-readable medium embodying instructions that when performed by one or more machines result in operations comprising: receiving data that identifies the supply-chain participants and interactions between the supply-chain participants; receiving data that identifies the consecutive order of the interactions; processing the data received to display in a first view, at least two columns representing business activities of the supply-chain participants, each column representing at least one of the supply-chain participants in the interactions, order of the columns from left to right represents a flow of goods, and the business activities being represented by individual polygons within the at least two columns; processing the data received to display in the first view, the business activities in individual polygons, the polygons being positioned adjacent to each other in order to represent the interactions between the supply-chain participants in the supply-chain collaboration; processing the data received to display in a second view, the at least two columns in the same order as the first view, the polygons being non-adjacent and being connected by lines, and the interactions between the supply-chain participants being represented by the lines connecting the polygons; and processing the data received to display in a third view, the at least two columns, the at least two columns including at least one additional column, each of the at least one additional columns representing specific computer components used to implement the interactions between the supply-chain participants and utilization of the computer components by the supply-chain participants.