Patent ID: 6873997

Claim:
A data management system for automatically propagating changes in information related to a product being designed or manufactured from a central location to remote and disparate user information systems having varying data formats, comprising: a central data base for storing and maintaining data that is related to a business process for manufacturing a product, including component serial numbers, change orders, and information pertaining to products, and is configured to format the data according to different aspects of the manufacturing business process for transfer to remote and disparate user information systems; an administration module communicating with the central database and having software code that, when executed by a microprocessor, configures the administration module to validate data related to a product; a product change module communicating with the central data base and having software code that, when executed by a microprocessor, configures the product change module to poll the central data base to determine whether a change has been made to data related to a product; and to send a signal to the data server upon the detection of a change of product data in the central data base, and a data server having code that, when executed by a microprocessor, prepares files for transfer to the disparate systems including setting the profile for the files that includes the format under which the file is configured and the file attributes to facilitate file transfer, receipt and processing by the respective user information systems, and configures the data server to extract, format and transmit changes in data stored in the central data base to the user information system, the data being transferred according to predetermined data requirements of the disparate user information systems, and further having code for source destination field mapping.