Patent ID: 7194420

Claim:
A commodity-supply planning method comprising: storing transaction information representing contents of each of a plurality of transactions in a storage, in association with each of the plurality of transactions each for providing commodities to customers, and storing progress information representing whether each of the plurality of transactions is in a state of attaining each of a plurality of stages each indicating a progress level of the transaction based on progress of sales activities performed for accomplishing the transaction, in association with the transaction information, in said storage; summing a number of transactions dealing with a same commodity and having reached a same stage, twice at different points in time; and calculating an increase or decrease rate of the number of transactions, which have reached their respective stages, from results of the twice summing performed twice continuously; calculating an accomplishment probability by each stage of the plurality of the stages, the accomplishment probability being a probability that each of the transactions in a state of attaining the stage as the highest attained stage will be successfully accomplished after a predetermined period of time, based on statistical data representing a period of time required for successfully accomplishing each of the transactions in a state of attaining the stage as the highest attained stage; multiplying, by each stage, a sum of the expected sales of the commodities by the accomplishment probability; setting a sum of the products calculated in the multiplying step for the plurality of the stages; estimating a future demand for the commodities based on the previous steps; and storing the estimated future demand on a computer readable storage medium.