Patent ID: 7653616

Claim:
A computer program product tangibly embodied in a machine-readable storage device, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, perform operations for identifying a source or destination for stock, the operations comprising: receiving an electronic request to determine a source or destination for stock; accessing a software model of a facility comprising logistic area database objects that are configurable to represent storage locations at any one of a plurality of different levels of a hierarchy of storage locations and to represent an amount of stock stored at the storage locations; determining a level of the hierarchy of storage locations at which a logistic area database object will be identified as the source or destination for the stock, wherein the level is determined based upon whether a purpose associated with the received request is a planning purpose or an execution purpose; selecting a primary rule from a set of primary rules based upon the determined level of the hierarchy of storage locations and at least one of a material category associated with the stock and a logistic unit associated with the stock, wherein the logistic unit includes a set of attributes that define the stock wherein the selected primary rule includes at least one sequence specifying an order of categories to be searched, wherein the categories include logistic area database objects, processing methods that are associated with and define storage characteristics for the logistic area database objects, or electronic documents that include information about deliveries or orders for the stock; identifying, using the selected primary rule, at least one logistic area database object from the logistic area database objects representing the storage locations at the different levels of the hierarchy that is available as the source or destination for the stock; and assigning a storage location represented by the identified logistic area database object as the source or destination for the stock.