Patent ID: 8321260
Filing Date: 2012-11-27
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A product assortment planning system operable to determine scaled performance metric values for an assortment of products, the system comprising: a computer system including a processor, the computer system further comprising: a data store storing performance metric values for an assortment of products including a target assortment of products and a source assortment of products; an optimization unit executed by the processor to calculate an optimum product deletion order for the combined assortment of products, wherein to calculate an optimum product deletion order includes: testing deletion of each identified product to determine a net change in the performance metric for each of the products, and selecting a first product to delete based on the net change; estimating a recaptured performance metric for the deleted product based on at least one of the scaled performance metric values; reallocating the recaptured performance metric for the deleted product to the remaining products, and calculating the performance metric for the remaining products based on the reallocated recaptured performance metric; determining a new assortment of products comprised of the remaining products and the calculated performance metric for the remaining products, testing each product in the new assortment of products for deletion, selecting a next product for deletion based on the testing; and performing the determining a new assortment of products, the testing and the selecting until one product is remaining, wherein an order of deletion of each of the products represents the optimum product deletion order.