	US 7,613,638 B2
	Automated systems and methods to support electronic business transactions for spare parts
Amit Chakraborty, Cranbury, N.J. (US); Zhijing Liu, Audubon, Pa. (US); Liang H. Hsu, Irvine, Calif. (US); Sudarshan Sampath, Plainsboro, N.J. (US); and Jan Eggebrecht, Berlin (Germany)
Assigned to Siemens Corporate Research, Inc., Princeton, N.J. (US)
Filed on Aug. 31, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/216,852.
Claims priority of provisional application 60/646784, filed on Jan. 25, 2005.
Prior Publication US 2006/0167760 A1, Jul. 27, 2006
Int. Cl. G06F 17/30 (2006.01)

U.S. Cl. 705—27 [705/26]

20 Claims

1. A method for implementing electronic business transactions for spare parts, comprising the steps of:

storing an electronic catalog of spare parts in an extensible, modality-independent application repository, wherein the electronic catalog comprises spare parts content derived from a plurality of disparate backend sources of spare parts data, and which is represented in an integrated, structured format;

receiving a user request for at least one spare part;

automatically selecting a plurality of additional service parts responsive to a filter condition and the user request for the at least one spare part; and

rendering a user interface (UI) in response to the user request, wherein the UI comprises at least some of the spare parts catalog content including the automatically selected plurality of service parts from the extensible, modality-independent application repository for presentation to the user, and wherein the UI comprises at least one user-selectable function for enabling user-interaction with spare parts catalog content and initiating transactions with at least one backend source of spare parts data,

wherein rendering the UI comprises using the spare parts catalog content to generate a component list for a user-selected machine or system, wherein the component list comprises user selectable components and subcomponents of the machine or system represented in a hierarchical tree structure.