Patent ID: 7308416

Claim:
A system for determining product availability, comprising: a) at least one demand source for inputting demand information; b) a demand configurator receiving demand information from each said at least one demand source and coordinating product requests responsive to said received demand information according to customer request rules and priorities, said rules and priorities including assignment of customers to a plurality of forecast groups; c) a supply configurator receiving manufacturing and planning data from a planning source and manipulating said received manufacturing and planning data to a single level bill of material to create new supply data; d) a material resource engine for providing material supply information responsive to said new supply data, said received demand information and according to product supply rules and priorities; and e) a solver for optimizing product availability information to produce profit ATP (available-to-promise) schedules for a plurality of forecast groups responsive to the material supply information and product supply rules and priorities, wherein the demand configurator determines how supply is grouped for a plurality of customers in said plurality of forecast groups, and wherein the supply configurator deletes from said received demand information all build options and all receipts to create said new supply data from a last regenerative run of said material resource engine.