Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM WITH DOCUMENT PRODUCTION CAPABH~ITY
RELATED APPLICATIONS
There are no related applications.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to EPC-compliant tag data and
integrating search
data using the tag data to produce relevant business documents.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In order to more quickly exchange business documents the Electronic Data.
Interchange
(EDT) was created in the 1960's. EDI was originally an industry vertical
effort and was handled
with point to-point direct connections. Early adopters of EDI soon realized
that maintaining a
large number of point to point connections with many trading partners using
many computing
platforms was very costly. The first value added network (VAN) was born when
several
industries in the early 1970s sponsored a shared EDI system and turned it over
to a third party
network. By the 1970's, more and more industries were involved, and work began
to institute
national and international standards. The goal was to create standards that
(1) were hardware
independent; (2) were unambiguous and could be used by all trading partners;
(3) reduced the
labor-intensive tasks of exchanging data (e.g., data re-entry); and (4)
allowed the sender of the
data to control the exchange, including knowing if and when the recipient
received the
transaction. Today there are numerous syntaxes for traditional EDI, although
only two are
widely recognized: X12 and EDIFACT.
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In an attempt to make the transactional data of EDI in particular and business
documents
in general, several more human readable several XMI, standards were developed.
One of these
standards was a subset of xiVIZ, known as Metes X1VIL. Metes xiVIL uses the
ability of the XMI,
tag structure to contain "attributes" or metes-data which further describes
the data or puts the data
in context.
As EDI and X1V11., exchanges became more prevalent, the availability of low
cost high
speed Internet connections made VAN replacement a target for cost savings,
just as EDI and
xiVll, have lowered costs. This replacement technology had to ensure security
and delivery of
the data. The result was the Electronic Data Interchange-Internet Integration
group (EDIINNT).
This group like the standards groups of EDI and XNiL, worked on developing a
generally
accepted standard for secure transmission of business data over the Internet.
The result of this
group's work was the AS1 and later AS2 protocols.
AS2 uses an envelope structure with sender and receiver information, which can
contain
an encrypted payload. To ensure that the transmission was successful an
acknowledgement is
returned upon completion of the transmission. The AS2's payload can be any
document
structure; its only constraint is that it be contained in a valid AS2
envelope.
Radio frequency identification (RF1D) is becoming an important identification
technology in numerous applications such as inventory management, security
access, personnel
identification, factory automation, automotive toll debiting and vehicle
identification. RFID
systems utilize an RFID transmitter-receiver unit (usually referred to as a
base station or
interrogator) to query an RFIB transponder or tag which may be located at a
distance from the
transmitter-receiver unit. The RFI17 tag which incorporates a chip detects the
base station signal
and transmits a response signal via an antenna incorporated in the tag
containnng encoded data
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back to the base station.
RFID systems provide identification functions not found in other
identification
technologies such as optical indicia (e.g., bar code) recognition systems. For
example, RFID
systems may employ RFID tags containing read/write memory of several kilobytes
or more. The
RFID tags may be readable at a distance and do not require direct line-of
sight view by the base
station. Further, multiple RFID tags may be read by the RF117 system at one
time and specific
item identification down to the individual unit can be undertaken using RF117
tags. RFm tag
reader equipment and associated equipment are commercially available and
manufactured by a
number of companies.
The breakthrough in RFID technology that allows the creation of electronic
product code
(EPC) is the conversion of the RFID tag from a database holding the
information about the
tagged item, to a URL that points to a database. 'That, together with the
Internet, allows the
creation and proper function of the EPC.
The RFID network and data storage is separate from the current business
networks of
EDI and EVIL business documents. In. the past, it was not possible to place
all of the
information gathered about the tagged items into a usable contextual. format.
By interconnecting
these networks, the present invention provides visibility into the entire
supply chain enabling the
correlation of the transport of physical products with the documents that are
related to the
transaction.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention employs RFII? technology to store and provide
information about
assets such as items, devices, and products combined with software and
apparatus for integrating
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RFID/EPC tag data with business documents to produce business documents
directe=d toward
specific fields of business usage.
RFIDIEPC tag data is obtained from a RFID/EPC tag that is attached to an
object.
The invention includes a tagging component such as RFID tag manufactured by
Texas
Instruments, Inc., Matrics, Inc. or Alien Inc. that includes information
specifying standards
which is applied to all articles to be identified. Each tag includes a
globally unique identifier.
An object interface component includes one or more devices for communicating
wi-~h the tags
and a device for receiving context information which uses a context-aware
intelligence that
includes logic for processing context information and logic specifying actions
for the system to
perform in response to the context information. ~r communication middleware
component is
used for communication between and among the components of the system and for
communicating with devices external to the system.
The invention can be implemented as a fully deployed system running entirely
within a
user's computer networking infrastructure or as a hosted service where key
components are run
on a provider's computer networking infrastructu~xe and only those components
readers and the
software connected to the readers needed at customer facilities are deployed
at the customer's
facility.
One aspect of the invention is the use of rneta X~iIL. Meta-AML, allows the
invention to
put into context all business documents that it processes. xiIZL documents
have been compared
to databases; their tree structure allows easy manipulation of the data
because it has a definable
location or node within the document. By using ~neta X1VIL, the addition of
attributes not only
places the data in richer context, it also gives each node or location of the
data (the xpath) in the
document, another level of unique identification. This allows the data to be
contextually
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displayed for machine to human interaction using X1VIL display files (XSL),
and more intelligent
transformation of the data into other structures using XML transformation
files (XSLT).
It is an object of the invention to allow users that have business documents,
which
contain information about articles being manufactured, maintained in
inventory, or sold by one
party to another have the articles tagged with a RFID/EPC tag and have these
two streams of
data (the business documents andthe RFID/EPC tag data) integrated into a
single stream of data
for access and reporting.
It is another object of the invention to provide improvements to inventory
management.
It is yet another obj ect of the invention to provide improvements to
inventory visibility.
It is another object of the invention to provide improvements to operational
improvements.
It is still another object of the invention to provide improvements to
inventory shrinkage.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide improvements to asset
tracking.
These and other objects, advantages, and novel features of the present
invention will
become apparent when considered with the teachings contained in the detailed
disclosure which
along with the accompanying drawings, constitute a part of this specification
and illustrate
embodiments of the invention which together with the description serve to
explain the principles
of the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will be better understood and objects other than those set forth
above will
become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed
description thereof. Such
description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
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Figure 1 is a schematic flowchart showing a system in accordance with the
invention;
Figure 2 is a schematic flowchart showing a technology stack used by the
invention;
Figure 3 is a schematic flowchart showing a drill-down of a software program
that
implements a communications network for business documents from Figure 1;
Figure 4 is a schematic flowchart showing a drill-down of a software program
that
implements a communications network for RFID/EPC tag ~.lata from Figure 1;
Figure 5 is a schematic flowchart which shows the flow of a business document
without
any RFID/EPC tag data;
Figure 6 is a schematic flowchart which shows the flow of RFID/EPC tag data
without
any documents; and
Figure 7 is a schematic Flowchart which shows the flow integrating the
RFID/EPC tag
data with the business documents.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The preferred embodiment and best mode of the in~rention is shown in Figures 1
through
7. While the invention is described in connection with certain preferred
embodiments, it is not
intended that the present invention be so limited. On the contrary, it is
intended to cover all
alternatives, modifications, and equivalent arrangements as may be included
within the spirit and
scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims_
Figure 1 discloses the architecture for a system that implements the methods
for this
invention. The system is constructed with the comr~~unication server 10 which
is the
communications hub of the system for all external communications. External
communications
occur between the system and interested parties. Interested parties are
defined as trading
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partners (i.e. external businesses) that do business with the entity running
the system, SOAP
interfaces that provide additional information for the system, or other
external communication
facilities (e-mail servers, instant message (IIVl) servers, etc.). When data
about an object 1 l,
having an RFID tag which is read by reader 12 or document data, is received
via the
communication server 10, that object data is passed on to the process engine
20.
The process engine 20 is the central nervous system. It provides core
processing for all
machine to machine and machine to human data. events that occur within the
system. Through a
series of prescribed rules defined for handling each event, the process engine
20, upon receiving
an event, determines the context of the event, what other actions have to take
place given the
current event and then causes those actions to be executed. The prescribed
rules are specifically
directed toward the conduct of specific business and the requirements for
same. As an example,
in a normal retail commerce application the process engine manages the flow of
orders, invoices,
ship notices, etc. and the alerts and notifications associated with the
business documents.
The back office applications 30 are external computer systems that stores or
provide data
needed by the system. Examples of such back office applications 30 are SAP, JD
Edwards,
Oracle and EDI Translators. The back office applications 30 send and receive
data to/from the
process engine 20.
The business document data network (BDDN) 40 is the component responsible for
managing all of the business documents that flow through the system. The BDDN
40 is the
equivalent of a PBX for voice or a Cisco muter for data. It is programmable
and configurable to
the defined needs of the entity or user of the system. It can be programmed
and coxtfigured to
support various display devices (web browser, PDA, cell phone, etc.), various
communications
protocols (ASl2, HTTP, FTP, etc.) and to hanclle any process required by the
business
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8
documents that it processes. The process engine 20 invokes the BDDN 40
whenever a business
document is received via the communication server 10 or back office
applications 30. The
BDDN 40 is responsible for and manages document translation, document sequence
and
document choreography involved in an overall business transaction that is
being managed by the
system. These functions are shown in detail in the Figure 3. The BDDN 40
contains a
document repository 50 that is used to store electronic representations of all
documents
processed by the system.
Figure 3 shows a schematic of the BDDN 40 which is responsible for all
document
processing within the system. The major subcomponents of the BDDN are the
sequencing
engine software 42 which is a software subsystem that manages the flow of
business documents
based on a predefined sequence, a choreography engine 44 which is a software
subsystem that
controls the additional business document sequences based on the business
document flow (i.e.
when an order is accepted by a supplier, a shipping order needs to be sent to
the shipper who will
transport the goods from the supplier to the buyer), an any to any translator
46 and a dynamic
EDI to X1VIZ, translator 48.
The sequencing engine 42 controls the sequence of documents required for a
defined
business transaction. For example, in the retail industry, two trading
partners, a buyer and a
supplier would agree that when the buyer sends the supplier a purchase order,
the supplier will
respond with a purchase order acknowledgement. Then, if the two parties agree
that changes to
an order are allowed, the buyer would send the supplier a purchase order
change and the supplier
would return a purchase order change acknowledgement. The supplier then sends
the buyer an
advance ship notice to let the buyer know that the goods for the order are
being sent, the supplier
sends the buyer an invoice and the buyer completes the conversation by sending
back a
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remittance advice. The sequencing engine 42 is software responsible for
managing this
transaction and automatically creates the response documents as well as pre-
creates templates for
any future documents in the transaction. For example, once a purchase order is
received,
sometime in the future an advance ship notice will be required. The sequencing
engine pre-
creates a template for this document and stores the template in the document
repository 50. At
the time the sequenced document is ready to be sent, the template is retrieved
from the document
repository, completed and then sent to the buyer.
The choreography engine 44 is responsible for spawning additional transaction
documents based on the rules defined fox a specific trading partner. The rules
for spawning
additional transaction documents are stored in the relationship repository 60.
When a document
is sent or received, the choreography engine 44 checks the relationship
repository 60 to
determine if any additional transaction documents are needed and automatically
generates the
documents required. Using the purchase order example from above, the supplier
mows as soon
as it accepts and acknowledges a purchase order that the goods ordered will
have to be shipped.
In this case, when the purchase order acknowledgement document is sent from
the supplier back
to the buyer, the choreography engine 44 would determine based on the specific
business trading
rules defined in the software that (1) a shipment order needs to be placed
with the supplier's
transportation company, (2) the document is generated and (3) the document is
passed to the
process engine 42 to be sent to the transportation company.
When the business.document requires RFm/EPC tag data to be inserted the BDDN
40
calls the EPC tag data network 70 to retrieve the necessary RFI17~ EPC tag
dat~r. as it is read.
There are two subcomponents that provide translation capabilities for business
documents. The any to any translator 46 can take any business document and
convert it into any
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other format. For example if SAP is being used as a back office application
30, then when an
EDI document that has information required to be stored in SAP arrives, the
any to any translator
46 would convert that EDI document to SAP's lDoc format. The IDoc is then
passed directly to
SAP and the SAP database is updated.
The EPC tag data network 70 (also referred herein to as thingsnet 70) is the
component
responsible for managing all of the RFID/EPC tag data and information
associated with those
RFID/EPC tags. RFIDIEPC tag data is collected from readers 72. Multiple
readers 72a-c may
be attached to the EPC tag data network. ThingsNet contains an EPC information
service (IS)
repository 74 that is used to store all of the RFIDIEPC tags data as well as
all the data associated
with those tags.
The relationship repository 60 and associated relationship manager 100 stores
the
information related to all the entities participating in the system. These
entities include trading
partners, RFID/EPC readers 72, 72a and 72b, back office applications 30 and
any other
interested party. The relationship repository 60 stores data and meta data
(data structures about
the data) for all components of the system. All components of the system
thereby access the
same set of information whenever it is needed during the processing of events
and actions.
Figure 2 shows the network stack used to implement the invention. At the
lowest level is
the communications layer 80. This layer handles the lowest level
communications protocols
with both external and internal entities. The communications protocols
supported are any
communication protocols required by the user and its trading partners,
including but not limited
to such protocols as HTTP(S), TCP/IP, X.25 and AS/2. All of the internal
communication
protocols are IP based, that is HTTP, TCP/11', etc.
A message broker bus 82 is the internal communications infrastructure. It is
used to
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11
route information between all components in the system. The message broker bus
82 supports
both synchronous and asynchronous communications as needed between components.
The transformation engine 84 is responsible for translating data between the
carious
different formats required for a conversation involving documents and RFID/EPC
tag data. For
example, if a document is received as an EDI document, but information in that
document is
used to update a back office application, the back office application requires
the information to
be in a format explicit to that application. The transformation engine 84 has
the respor3sibility
for performing that translation based on the rules defined in the repository
81 for the data format
required by the back office application. The repository 81 holds all
persistent and transient data,
documents, rules, EPC tag data, etc. that the system generates, requires, or
consumes during
normal operations. The repository 81 combines the relationship repository 60,
EPC IS 79 and
document repository 50.
The process management and workflow component 86 is the overall contrall~r of
the
system. The process management and workflow component 86 manages all machine
to 3nachine
processes needed for interaction between all the parties involved in an
implementation of the
system. Workflow, which is subservient to process management, provides an
implemer3tation of
the machine to human aspects of an implementation of the system. When the
process manager
detects an error or alert condition, it invokes the workflow manager to route
that error or alert to
a designated huxaan for resolution. If the error or alert is not ha~adled in a
timely xnamner, the
workflow engine consults the rules in the repository 81 to determine proper
e~~calation
procedures for the error or alert. The process manager may also invoke the
warhflow engine in
the case where a human is required to make a decision as a normal part of the
process.
The presentation component or layer 88 is responsible for converting all data
f-~or human
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display on an as-needed basis. The presentation layer provides personalization
features for all
human users of the system. The personalization can be done based on display
preferences
(color, logo, etc.) or on device preferences (web browser, PDA, cell phone,
etc.).
The intelligence component or layer 90 provides both business and process
intelligence
to users of the system. Business intelligence allows the user to view pre-
defined or ad-hoc
reports about the user's business. For example, "What is my current inventory
level?", "How
many orders need to be filled today?", etc. Process intelligence allows the
user to view pre-
defined or ad-hoc reports about the processes being run and managed by the
system. For
example, "How many orders are currently being filled?", "How many documents
are being
processed?",etc.
The repository 81 stores all the information related to all the entities
participating in the
system. These entities include trading partners, RFID/EPC readers, back office
applications and
any other interested party, documents, RFmBCP tag data, etc. The repository 81
stores data
and meta data (data structures about the data) for all components of the
system. All components
of the system thereby access the same set of information whenever it is needed
during the
processing of events and actions.
Figure 4 shows a schematic flowchart of the EPC tag data netwoxk 70 component
of the
system. The EPC tag data network component is based on the RFID/EPC standards
and
specifications as defined by EPCglobal, Inc. The subcomponents of EPC tag data
network are
RFID/EPC readers 72, savant 74, EPC information service (EPC IS) 76, object
naming service
(ONS) 78, and the EPC IS repository 79.
The savant 74 is the core component and provides a set of middleware services
for
communicating between the readers 72 and other external applications. The
savant 74 provides
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an application programming interface (API) which allows external applications
to involve its
services to either initialize RFI17/EPC tags or to retrieve the RFID/EPC tag
data that has been
collected by the readers.
The EPC information service 76 provides an application programming interface
(API) to
create, read, update, and delete data associated with RFID/EPC tags. The EPC
IS 76 maintains
the relationship between the RFID/EPC tag data and the meta data about the
article that the
RFD~/EPC tag is attached to. For example, when an RFID/EPC tag is attached to
a
manufactured item (for example, a case of motor oil) the system associates the
RFIl7/EPC tag
with the information about the manufactured item and stores it in the EPC IS
repository 79 via
the EPC IS 76. Later in the process, when information about a tagged item is
needed, that
information is retrieved from the EPC IS repository 79 via the EPC IS 76.
The object naming service (ONS) is to RFID/EPC tag data what a domain name
service
(DNS) is to computers connected to the Internet. When a system needs to locate
a computer on
the Internet it sends a request to a DNS. The DNS performs a lookup in the DNS
repository and
send the result of that lookup back to the requesting system. Similarly, when
the system
described in this invention requires information about a RFID/EPC tag that is
not resident in its
local EPC IS repository, it sends a query to the ONS which performs a lookup
in the ONS
repository to locate the EPC IS that has the information about the tag. The
system then uses that
EPC IS location information to invoke a query against the provided EPC IS to
retrieve the
desired data.
The remaining Figures S-7 provide details on the flow of information through
the system
for documents, RF117lEPC tag data and documents integrated with RFID/EPC tag
data. Current
best practices maintain a separation between business documents and RFID/EPC
tag data. That
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is each (tag data, documents) data is treated as a separate stream of
information. V~Then
correlation between the two is needed a computer system is used to check that
the business
document matches the RFID/EPC tag data. The purpose of this invention is to
provide methods
and computer systems that implement those methods for integrating business
documents and
RFID/EPC tag data. Businesses that implement this methodology can gain
substantial cost
savings throughout their supply chain.
The flow chart in Figure 5 shows the separate flow for processing business
documents.
When any document is received, the first step in the process is to archive 102
that documer~t for
legal and historical purposes. Following that, the sequence engine 104 checks
to make sure the
document is in sequence for the business communication that the document
relates to. Ff the
document is not in sequence it is queued 106 until such a time when all other
preceding
documents in the business communication have been processed. Ifthe document is
in sequence,
the next step is to translate 108 the document according to the business rules
stored i~ the
relationship repository for that document.
Following successful translation the choreography engine is called to process
any
additional related document 110. Next, the translated version of the document
is archived 112
and then the document is routed to the appropriate location. The appropriate
location is
determined by the document type and the rules setup for that document type and
trading partners.
If the document is an inbound document it is routed to the appropriate back
office system 114.
If the document is an outbound document it is routed to the receiving trading
partner 116. If the
document is not successfully translated, a machine to human action is invoked
(workfl.ow) to
notify the appropriate person of the failure so that the problems can be
corrected and the
document successfully translated.
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For the EPC tag data network 70, which is shown in the flowchart of Figure 6,
the flow
of information starts when an RFm tag is applied to an object 11 and the tag
is initialized 220
with the appropriate tag data 222. This tag data is then stored in the EPC
information service
database. Any time the tag passes through a tag reader (12) 224, the tag is
validated 226 to
ensure it is an authentic tag that as well as checking what the tag is
attached to. If the tag is
valid, it is then added to a collection 228 based on its location. For
example, if the tag is applied
to a case of goods and that case is placed on a tagged pallet, the EPC
information service
database 230 is updated with this information. Finally, this EPC tag data
information is supplied
to requesting applications 232 on request.
The inventive integration of the document flow with the EPC tag data flow as
is shown
in the flowchart shown in Figure 7. This process allows the business documents
and the EPC
tag data that relates to the business documents to be integrated into a single
stream of data. This
integrated stream of data provides a complete audit trail from the business
document to the
physical goods associated with those business documents. The integrated
process follows the
document-only process until the related documents are processed. Then, instead
of archiving the
translated document, the relationship manager is queried to determine if EPC
tag data. needs to
be embedded in the document. Tf it is determined that the EPC tag data should
be embedded, the
EPC tag data process is invoked to collect the required EPC tag data, the data
is returned to the
requesting application, in this case the business data document network
(BDDN), and the EPC
tag data is inserted into the proper location in the respective document.
The integrated process begins with a document being sent fiom one trading
partner to the
user of the system. As in the BDDN, the document is first archived and then
checked to ensure
that it has been received in the proper sequence as defined in the
relationship manager database.
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Once the sequence check passes, the document is translated. If the translation
fails, the
document is queued and a notification is sent to correct the problem that is
causing the
translation failure. Once the document is translated into the proper format,
the relationship
manager is checked to determine if additional documents need to be generated.
This is handled
by the choreography engine. The translated document and any additional
documents are
checked against the database to determine if they can accept EPC/RFID tag
data. If the
documents) can accept the EPC/RFID tag data, the EPC tag data network is ca
fled so the tag
data relating to the specific document can be collected. As the EPC/RF)D tags
~x'e read by the
reader and processed by the EPC tag data network, the information is providcd
back to the
BDDN and the received EPC/RFID tag data is inserted into the proper location
ir3 the document.
Control is then passed back to the BDDN, which archives the new document
structure (with
embedded EPC/RRID tag data), the actions are logged and the document is
delivered to the
destination trading partner via the agreed protocol.
The principles, preferred embodiments and modes of operation of the present
invention
have been described in the foregoing specification. However, the invention
should not be
construed as limited to the particular embodiments which have been described
above. Instead,
the embodiments described here should be regarded as illustrative rather khan.
restrictive.
Variations and changes may be made by others without departing from the scope
of the present
inventions defined by the following claims.
