Patent ID: 9710838
Date: 2017-07-18
CPC Classifications: G05B,G06N,G06Q

Claim:
1. A method comprising: selecting a plurality of features to include within a predictive build of a computing system, the computing system comprising a server computing device having a plurality of hardware components arranged in a particular configuration, the features comprising the hardware components in the particular configuration, the predictive build being an anticipated final build of the computing system prior to receiving a firm customer order for the computing system in accordance with which an actual final build of the computing system is then built; estimating a marginal cost of first building the predictive build and then modifying the predictive build to realize the actual final build, as compared to building the actual final build without first building the predictive build and then modifying predictive build to realize the actual final build, based on the features selected; responsive to determining that the marginal cost is less than a predetermined acceptable marginal cost limit, performing: responsive to determining that the marginal cost is greater than the predetermined acceptable marginal cost limit, performing: wherein estimating the marginal cost comprises: wherein the marginal cost value for each feature, as the given feature, is equal to the marginal cost of including the given feature within the predictive build multiplied by a number of the instances of the given feature to be included within the predictive build, wherein the number of instances of the given feature to be included within the predictive build is selected as a sum of a mean of a distribution of the given feature within past customer orders of the computing system and a predetermined value, the distribution indicating how often the given potential feature was present within the past customer orders.