Patent ID: 7418307

Claim:
A method for managing component supply for assembly of complex products, comprising: monitoring improvement in supply lead time performance of suppliers of components of a complex assembly wherein the monitoring step comprises, for each component: measuring an historical record of delivery delay by the supplier; obtaining from the supplier at periodic intervals an estimated delivery delay for each component item in a delivery pipeline; calculating in a delivery pipeline an improvement factor that compares the estimated delivery delay with the historical delivery delay; and generating from a measure of said improvement supply order times that keep an expected supply delay for a component within a target delay tolerance for the component; wherein the generating step comprises: selecting for each component an inventory policy for determining a safety factor for the component; calculating a safety factor for each component in accordance with the selected inventory policy; determining a target delay tolerance for each component; calculating an expected supply delay for each component; and calculating the supply order time for each component so that the expected supply delay is within said target delay tolerance.