Patent ID: 8433591

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating decisions to make an item in-house or to buy the item from one or more outside suppliers, the method comprising: receiving, at one or more computers, information defining a workflow corresponding to a business process for arriving at a make or buy decision for the item, wherein the information configures the one or more computers to enforce one or more aspects of the business process; generating, with one or more processors associated with the one or more computer systems, information configured for determining whether to buy or make the item using quantifications of the make decision, quantifications of the buy decision, and anticipated quantity of the item needed within a predefined time period; and generating, with one or more processors associated with the one or more computer systems, information configured for determining whether to buy or make the item using quantifications of a strategic value of either the make decision or the buy decision according to a set of strategic criteria indicative of a degree to which a decision is aligned with at least one predetermined business strategy based on information obtained through enforcement of the one or more aspects of the business process through the workflow; wherein enforcement of the one or more aspects of the business process through the workflow includes: receiving, at the one or more computers, a market specification for the item from one or more workflow participants in a marketing department; receiving, at the one or more computers, information estimating a market volume for the item; receiving, at the one or more computers, a material equipment plan from one or more workflow participants in a planning department; receiving, at the one or more computers, an engineering specification from one or more workflow participants in an engineering department; receiving, at the one or more computers, information establishing a purchase price to buy the item; receiving, at the one or more computers, information estimating a unit cost for producing the item in-house from one or more workflow participants in a costing department of the enterprise; receiving, at the one or more computers, information estimating a cost of acquiring a production capacity to produce the item in-house; and receiving, at the one or more computer systems, a score and weight for each strategic criteria in the set of strategic criteria.