Patent ID: 8666791

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon, the computer program causing a general purpose computer to perform a method for providing a supply chain as a service, comprising the steps of: accumulating information relating to past, present and future product demand and consumption for each of a plurality of end users and final purchasers having similar product or service requirements by a cooperative buying group representing a single purchase in bulk to disintermediate the supply chain; accumulating the received product demand into a single predictive demand schedule by the cooperative buying group; transmitting the accumulated predictive product demand schedule to a manufacturer/original source of the product by the cooperative buying group; receiving product availability information based upon the accumulated predictive product demand from the manufacturer/original source of the product by the cooperative buying group; providing the product availability information to the plurality of end users and final purchasers by the cooperative buying group in accordance with a website based display of such product availability information; receiving one or more product orders from one or more of the plurality of end users and final purchasers by the cooperative buying group by the website based display of the product availability information; ordering product from the manufacturer/original source of the product and managing all aspects of the supply chain in accordance with the received one or more product orders by the cooperative buying group; and shipping the product from the manufacturer/original source of the product to one or more of the plurality of end users and final purchasers in accordance with the received product order information from the cooperative buying group for each of the end users and final purchasers.