WEAVE®
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Most companies today maintain multiple internal legacy systems containing procurement history data, stock room inventory data and supplier catalog and pricing data; critical supply chain and purchasing decisions are made everyday based on the information available to the procurement specialist. This data is typically aggregated from a variety of sources including text descriptions and memo fields in relational database tables, product specification sheets and supplier Web sites. Each data source describes parts using different terminology, standards and abbreviations, making it difficult to merge the various data sources into a structured searchable database. This lack of visibility into the supply chain makes it nearly impossible for a company to be strategic in their procurement decisions or to ensure that they have found the best suppliers with the most competitive pricing and delivery terms.
The myth of eCommerce is that information entered at the source is instantly available to all members of the supply chain who need it, and that data flows seamlessly to points of use without manual intervention. The reality is that manual data re-entry is widespread, and that differences in data formats are resolved by intensive manual interpretation making inconsistencies and incompleteness prevalent. This results in over stocked items, inefficient spend and reduced ability to respond effectively to supply chain events.
Automated supply chain management tools enable businesses to manage the supply chain at optimal efficiency, to reduce friction when there is a breakdown in the supply chain and locate the least-cost alternate sources that satisfy requirements for needed parts and supplies.
WEAVE® is an automated Web based supply chain optimization tool that aggregates multiple on-line Web catalogs with the company’s own stock room inventory to produce an integrated virtual view of the supply chain. WEAVE® provides a Web based interactive search tool enabling users to locate and compare items across the data landscape so that similar items can be quickly identified and pricing from various suppliers can be easily referenced.
The idea driving the WEAVE® system is the creation of a master catalog which is continuously in sync with various vendor and legacy catalogs. The system doesn't just copy information from the various sources, but standardizes it so that procurement specialists can make informed and strategic supply chain decisions based on the data:
- Textual descriptions of items are gathered from a company's legacy databases and, automated Web agents are used to harvest additional supplier data from targeted supplier and manufacturer Web sites.
- Ontology Directed Classification (ODC) associates each description to a product node in a hierarchical product classification system.
- Ontology Directed Extraction (ODE) parses the description to extract and standardize values of appropriate descriptive attributes and technical characteristics.
- Manufacturer names and part numbers are standardized for comparison with equivalent parts across all sources for mutual enrichment.
- Finally, Ontology Directed Matching (ODM) performs specifications based attribute matching between product needs and available products.
- Data is updated using an automated scheduling workflow so that a company always has a current structured Web accessible picture of its inventory and the supply chain.
WEAVE® empowers users to: understand spending patterns, maximize buying leverage, drive continuous improvement in contract compliance and supplier performance, and optimize budgets and planning.