Abstract: Methods and system are disclosed for planning and optimizing plans of a value chain in response to events and exceptions in the value chain with minimal perturbations to the existing plan. When an event or an exception occurs, potential solutions are constructed and evaluated. The potential solutions respect the business process constraints and temporal constraints on transactions, and the true dynamic capacity constraints in the value chain. The impact of the potential solutions on finance and on the existing plan is evaluated. The solution with maximum profit and minimum perturbation to the existing plan is selected and executed. Techniques of achieving the above goals are described.

Abstract: Exemplary methods and systems of the invention include a value chain management program that uses the most current, up-to-date data to re-plan a value chain. The value chain management program of the invention is an event-driven solution that updates the data in the value chain whenever a change in state of the value chain occurs or an exception occurs, resulting in the most recent data being used. Moreover, the value chain management program is able to identify and process only the portion of the value chain that is affected by the state change, or the exception instead of the entire value chain, thereby reducing processing time tremendously. The value chain management program then uses the up-to-date value chain data to determine whether any changes are needed to the affected portion of the value chain plan.