Patent ID: 7487120

Claim:
A method for continuous replenishment planning of a consignment inventory, comprising: providing a consignment storage including material from each vendor of a plurality of vendors; setting, for a pre-determined time period, a target quantity of material for each vendor of the plurality of vendors wherein the target quantity of material includes a first quantity of material to be stored in the consignment storage; determining at least one of a high quantity value, a low quantity value, and a safe limit quantity value for each vendor of the plurality of vendors, wherein the high quantity value, the low quantity value and the safe limit quantity value each include a value associated with a quantity of material stored in the consignment storage; selecting material to be dispatched from the consignment storage, from each vendor of the plurality of vendors, wherein the selecting material includes calculating vendor priority, and wherein the calculating vendor priority includes: calculating, for each vendor of the plurality of vendors, a target rate wherein the target rate equals a vendor target quantity divided by a summation of all vendor target quantities; calculating, for each vendor of the plurality of vendors, a consumption rate wherein the consumption rate equals a vendor issued quantity from consignment-storage divided by a summation of all vendor issued quantities from consignment storage; calculating, for each vendor of the plurality of vendors, an achieved rate whereby the achieved rate equals the consumption rate minus the target rate; and dispatching the selected material; and automatically updating a vendor stock status record periodically, wherein the vendor stock status record provides an indication of a current quantity of material stored in the consignment storage by each vendor of the plurality of vendors.