Patent ID: RE40924

Claim:
A logistics management tool to facilitate the process of shipping goods by a shipper via a selected one of a plurality of carriers, comprising: a plurality of rate servers comprising computer-implemented rate storage and calculating means, at least one rate server for each of said plurality of carriers, at least one of said rate servers having message processing means for sending, receiving and handling messages; at least one of said rate servers database means for maintaining a record of the rates applicable to a given one of said carriers and further having an embedded set of predefined methods representing the rate computation rules of said given one of said carriers; at least one client application comprising computer-implemented input and output means separate from said rate servers and having a user interface to permit the shipper to interact with said logistics management tool in order to process the a shipment of goods; at least one of said rate servers having a shipper interface means for defining a set of operations accessible to said client application; the set of operations representing the a procedure by which the shipper ships goods to thereby isolate the set of operations by which a said shipper ships from the rules by which a said carrier transports; at least one supervisory server for integrating operations of said at least one rate server, and for making said operations accessible to said client application, said supervisory server having message processing means for sending messages to and receiving messages from said at least one rate server and said client application and for handling messages sent and received based upon a predefined set of rules.