Patent ID: 8423429

Claim:
An advanced material management center, comprising: a vendor site just-in-time (VJIT) warehouse disposed at a location proximate to but distinct from a manufacturing site, the VJIT maintaining materials owned by a vendor for provisioning to a manufacturer for production of an end item by the manufacturer; a buffer area included at a manufacturing site just-in-time (MJIT) warehouse, located at a manufacturing site of a manufacturer, the buffer area holding only vendor-owned units of material transferred from the VJIT in quantities less than an aggregate number of units held by the vendor, the VJIT monitoring a quantity of vendor-owned units of material held by the buffer area and replenishing vendor-owned units of material upon detection by the VJIT of vendor-owned units of material held in the buffer area below a predetermined level; a manufacturing line inventory warehouse disposed at the manufacturing site proximate to the buffer area, the manufacturing line inventory warehouse receiving vendor-owned units of material from the buffer area when the buffer area receives a parts issue request, ownership of the materials being transferred to the manufacturer after receipt by the manufacturing line inventory warehouse of the vendor-owned units of material from the buffer area; an inventory database including data identifying the vendor-owned units of materials held in the buffer area at the MJIT warehouse of the manufacturing site; and a materials management system, coupled to the inventory database, including a processor and memory, the processor issuing the parts issue requests for vendor-owned material needed from the buffer area at the MJIT warehouse during manufacturing of the end item.