Patent ID: 7552095

Claim:
Software for valuing manufactured products embodied in a computer-readable medium and, when executed using one or more computer systems is configured to: assign a price to each of a plurality of products, each product comprising one or more product components; assign a demand probability value to each product; calculate a component value for each component by: (a) assuming a beginning value for each component; (b) for a first component, calculating prorated values, such that for each product using that component, a prorated value is calculated on that component by calculating the difference between the product price and a value of the product's other components; (c) calculating a component value as a function of the prorated values and the probability values; (d) repeating (b) and (c) for all other components; (e) determining whether the component values converge; and (f) if any component value does not converge, using the calculated component value as the beginning component value and repeating (b) through (e) for that component; and calculating a value for each product, by summing the component values of all components of that product.