Patent ID: 7657534

Claim:
A supply chain order commitment method, executed on a supply chain entity computer, comprising: identifying services and data sources, utilizing the supply chain entity computer, capable of supporting generation of a supply chain order commitment, wherein the data sources are associated with the services, are unrelated to other data sources, are external to the supply chain entity, and are remotely located from the supply chain entity computer; mapping the services and data sources to enable synchronized on-demand queries, comprising: registering relationships between the supply chain entity the data sources and among the services and the data sources, wherein registering relationships includes: mapping the data sources to a pre-existing data schema; establishing persistent data transfer links to allow creation of real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information based on data from the data sources, wherein the persistent data transfer links enable the real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information to be automatically updated with corresponding changes to data at the data sources without persistently storing a duplicate copy of data from the data sources; and storing the persistent data transfer links in a repository co-located with the supply chain entity computer; retrieving data from the data sources using the persistent data transfer links; generating a graphical user interface (GUI) view of the real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information based on the retrieved data and the mapping of data sources to the pre-existing data schema; displaying the GUI view of the real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information on a display of the supply chain entity computer; if the data from the data sources changes at the data sources, automatically updating the GUI view of the real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information and displaying the updated GUI view of the real-time, concurrent order fulfillment information; and using the order fulfillment information to generate in real-time the supply chain order commitment.