Methodology for advanced quantity-oriented cost assignment using various information sources

Patent 6308166 Issued on October 23, 2001. Estimated Expiration Date:

August 20, 2018. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

Natural-language interface generating system
Patent #: 4688195
Issued on: 08/18/1987
Inventor: Thompson , et al.

Cost estimating system
Patent #: 5546564
Issued on: 08/13/1996
Inventor: Horie

System for creating, editing, displaying, and executing rules-based programming language rules having action part subsets for both true and false evaluation of the conditional part Patent #: 5596752
Issued on: 01/21/1997
Inventor: Knudsen, et al.

Inventors

Assignee

SAP Aktiengesellschaft

Application

No. 137037 filed on 08/20/1998

US Classes:

705/400, FOR COST/PRICE704/8Multilingual or national language support

Examiners

Primary: Trammell, James P.
Assistant: Dixon, Harold A.

Attorney, Agent or Firm

Chadbourne & Parke

Foreign Patent References

2 262 369 A GB. 06/13/1993
WO 98 11493 A WO. 03/13/1998
WO 98 33134 A WO. 07/13/1998

International Class

G06F 017/00

Abstract

A process template is provided to enhance the evaluation and control of an organization's costs, utilizing three layers. The first layer provides a user interface that accepts language-dependent function names and descriptions utilizing different editors for cells within the template. The second layer utilizes a parser to check the syntax of the functions and create control blocks that are internal representations of the functions. The third layer handles the physical storage of the template and generates an executable report.A flexible link to different cost objects is created so that an evaluation within different costing applications may occur. As the sender objects and the quantities are determined during the evaluation, a sophisticated, demand-driven cost assignment from a receiver point of view occurs.

Other References

Johnson, Thomas; It's Time to Stop Overselling Activity-Based Concepts; Sep. 1992; Management Accounting v74n3, pp 26-35, DialogWeb copy pp. 1-17.
"Operative Linkage of CO-ABC with Product Costing" Sep. 1996, p. 1-16
Berliner, Callie and Brimson, James A. eds., Cost Management for Today's Advanced Manufacturing. The CAM-I Conceptual Design, 1988, pp. 6-13, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, USA
Turney, Peter B.B., The ABC Performance Breakthrough. How to suceed with activity-based costing, 1991, pp. 126-135, 168-171, Cost Technology, Hillsboro, OR USA
Brimson, James A. and Antos, John, Activity-Based Management For Service Industries, Government Entitites, And Nonprofit Organizations, 1994, pp. 208-213, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, US