Patent ID: 7593885

Claim:
A method for a buyer to award a supply contract to a supplier selected from a panel of predetermined suppliers which each have a base supply contract with the buyer, the method being conducted over a computer network which comprises at least one buyer computer, an administrator computer and at least two supplier computers, the method comprising the steps of: (a) establishing key parameters for a BOM to be submitted by the administrator computer to the at least two supplier computers (eg. price, quality, delivery and service); (b) applying a weighting to each of the parameters; (c) applying a rating for each of these parameters for each supplier of the panel of predetermined suppliers; (d) calculating, from said parameter weightings and said supplier ratings for each parameter, an overall rating for each supplier of the panel of predetermined suppliers; (e) applying that overall rating to any offer received by the administrator computer from the supplier computer of that supplier in response to the release of a BOM to adjust that offer prior to comparison of that offer with any other offer; and (f) providing to each supplier computer a current bid to win (CBTW) in respect of said supply contract, the CBTW calculated by said administrator computer to dynamically indicate to a supplier the offer that that particular supplier must submit to compete with the best previous offer.