Patent ID: 7117164

Claim:
A computer-implemented system for manufacturing forecasting, the system comprising one or more memory units and one or more processing units operable to: store, in one or more of the memory units, end product demand information representative of a predicted future demand for an end product, and intermediate product information representative of an amount per time period of an intermediate product that can be produced and intermediate product demand information representative of a predicted future demand for the intermediate product; determine, based on the end product demand information, a demand quantity of the end product that a manufacturer is to produce during a specified time period to satisfy the predicted future demand, wherein production of the demand quantity of the end product requires producing a first intermediate-product quantity of an intermediate product that is further processed to produce the demand quantity of the end product, and requires producing a first by-product quantity of a by-product; determine, based on the intermediate product information and the demand quantity, a second intermediate-product quantity of the intermediate product that the manufacturer can produce during the specified time period in addition to the first intermediate-product quantity, wherein production of the second-intermediate-product quantity requires producing a second by-product quantity; determine, based on the second intermediate-product quantity and the intermediate product demand information, whether to produce any of the second intermediate-product quantity of the intermediate product; and determine, based on the demand quantity of the end product and the second intermediate-product quantity, a total by-product quantity of the by-product that the manufacturer can produce during the specified time period.