Architectural design for intra-company stock transfer application software

A system, comprising:

• a computer system comprising one or more hardware platforms for executing a computer software application;
• a plurality of process components, each of the process components being a package of software implementing a respective and distinct business process, the plurality of process components including:
• a supply and demand matching process component that manages the tasks used to ensure that sufficient material receipt elements exist to cover material demand while taking available capacity into account;
• a customer requirement processing process component that controls the customer requirements in the supply chain;
• a logistics execution control process component that creates, controls, and monitors the supply chain execution activities used for the fulfillment of an order on a macro-logistics level;
• a site logistics processing process component that prepares, physically executes, and confirms the logistics processes within a site;
• an outbound delivery processing process component that manages and processes the outbound delivery requirements for shipping goods to a product recipient:
• an inbound delivery processing process component that manages and processes the inbound delivery requirements for received goods from a vendor;
• an inventory processing process component that manages the inventory and recording of inventory changes;
• an accounting process component that handles the representation of relevant business transactions for valuation and profitability analysis;
• a production and site logistics auxiliaries processing process component that supports the functionality valid for multiple process components;
• and
• a freight documents processing process component that processes the freight-related documents for shipping purposes;
• and
• a plurality of service operations, each service operation being implemented for a respective process component, the operations comprising inbound and outbound operations, the outbound operation for a first process component being operable to send a message to a second process component of the plurality of process components, the second process component having an inbound operation for receiving the message, the passing of messages between an inbound and an outbound operation defining a message-based pair-wise interaction between the respective process components of the respective operations, the pair-wise interactions between pairs of the process components including interactions between:
• the inventory processing process component and the supply and demand matching process component;
• the site logistics processing process component and the accounting process component;
• the logistics execution control process component and the outbound delivery processing process component;
• the logistics execution processing process component and the inbound delivery processing process component;
• and
• the outbound delivery processing process component and the inbound delivery processing process component.

A method for developing a computer software application, comprising:

• obtaining in a computer system digital data representing an architectural design for a set of processes implementing an end-to-end application process, the design specifying a process component for each process in the set of processes, the design specifying further specifying a set of process component interactions, wherein:
• a supply and demand matching process component that manages the tasks used to ensure that sufficient material receipt elements exist to cover material demand while taking available capacity into account;
• a customer requirement processing process component that controls the customer requirements in the supply chain;
• a logistics execution control process component that creates, controls, and monitors the supply chain execution activities used for the fulfillment of an order on a macro-logistics level;
• a site logistics processing process component that prepares, physically executes, and confirms the logistics processes within a site;
• an outbound delivery processing process component that manages and processes the outbound delivery requirements for shipping goods to a product recipient:
• an inbound delivery processing process component that manages and processes the inbound delivery requirements for received goods from a vendor;
• an inventory processing process component that manages the inventory and recording of inventory changes;
• an accounting process component that handles the representation of relevant business transactions for valuation and profitability analysis;
• a production and site logistics auxiliaries processing process component that supports the functionality valid for multiple process components;
• and
• a freight documents processing process component that processes the freight-related documents for shipping purposes;
• and
• the process component interactions include interactions between:
• the inventory processing process component and the supply and demand matching process component;
• the site logistics processing process component and the accounting process component;
• the logistics execution control process component and the outbound delivery processing process component;
• the logistics execution processing process component and the inbound delivery processing process component;
• and
• the outbound delivery processing process component and the inbound delivery processing process component;
• and
• using the design including the specified process components and the specified process component interactions to develop a computer software application to perform the set of processes.