Patent ID: 7539630

Claim:
An attribute-based method for planning replenishment of goods by manufacture of resources within a supply chain network, comprising: modeling the supply chain network by defining stock keeping units (SKU) associated with the resources within the supply chain network; creating a plurality of SKU attribute groups, each SKU attribute group defined by item identifier, location, date, quantity, priority, and customer, wherein a given SKU belongs to a given SKU attribute group provided the SKU has at least the attributes defined by the SKU attribute group; inputting orders for goods each having attributes of customer name, order identification, SKU, goods identification, location, date, and quantity; assigning a priority for each order for goods; selecting a highest priority order for planning the replenishment of goods using the resources within the supply chain network; generating a configuration of resources needed to fill the highest priority order based on the SKU attribute groups, the configuration including subordinate SKU which are needed to fill the order; evaluating the configurations for feasibility, the configuration being feasible if all subordinates SKU in the configuration are available for the replenishment of goods in a planning interval; and selecting the configuration that is feasible for planning purposes to fill the highest priority order.