Patent ID: 8428985

Claim:
A method, comprising: determining, for a dealer of interest, a target inventory mix rate for an item having multiple features by using dealer-level historical sales mix rates and market-level historical sales mix rates for the features; determining a projected inventory mix rate for the features based at least in part on projected dealer sales for the features; performing, in a computing device having a processor and a memory, a mathematical programming optimization that includes an objective function and constraints to obtain a recommended feature allocation of the item including the features, based at least in part on at least one weighting factor associated with the dealer of interest, by minimizing a difference between a projected inventory mix rate for the features and the target inventory mix rate for the features; for the dealer of interest, calculating each of: (a) dealer-level feature-related sales of an item over a set of times where the sales are related to a feature of the item, (b) dealer-level total sales for the item over the set of times, and (c) a dealer-level historical sales mix rate for the feature based at least in part on the dealer-level total sales and the dealer-level feature sales; for a market related to the dealer of interest, calculating each of: (d) market-level feature-related sales of an item over the set of times where the sales are related to a feature of the item, (e) market-level total sales for the item over the set of times, and (f) a market-level historical sales mix rate for the feature based at least in part on the market-level total sales and the market-level feature sales; and using the dealer-level historical sales mix rates and the market-level historical mix rates for the feature at least in part in determining the target inventory mix rate; wherein the constraints include at least one of a production constraint, a material availability constraint, and an item definition constraint, and further wherein the optimization compares output of the optimization relative to an optimal value of the objective function.