Patent ID: 8078489

Claim:
A computerized system for identifying a globally optimal subset of product configurations from a plurality of possible product configurations associated with a product, wherein the globally optimal subset of product configurations identifies a limited number (r) of product configurations that should be offered to a company's customer base over a predefined future period of time to satisfy a desired objective of the company, wherein (r) is greater than or equal to 1 and wherein each product configuration includes a plurality of available features and wherein each feature includes a plurality of available options, comprising: a processor; a database for storing product configuration data and historical demand data associated with the plurality of possible product configurations, wherein each product configuration includes a specific combination of choices of options associated with the respective product; and a computer readable medium that is usable by the processor and is operatively coupled to the database, the medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions that when executed by the processor causes the execution of the steps of: receiving product configuration data from the database representative of the plurality of possible product configurations; based on the received product configuration data, representing every product configuration in the plurality of possible product configurations as a point in a multi-dimensional product configuration space, wherein the product configuration space has a dimension for each of the plurality of product features; eliminating all invalid product configurations in order to identify a plurality of valid product configurations as a smaller subset of the plurality of possible product configurations; receiving historical demand data from the database for valid product configurations previously sold; simultaneously optimizing all of the dimensions of the product configuration space using an optimization model, but without performing a complete enumeration of the valid product configurations, in order to identify a globally optimum subset of (r) valid product configurations from the plurality of valid product configurations based on the desired objective of the company and the received historical demand data; outputting the globally optimal subset of valid product configurations that identifies the limited number (r) of product configurations that should be offered to the company's customer base over the predefined future period of time to satisfy the desired objective of the company.