Patent ID: 7343212

Claim:
A device for item substitution in a manufacturing process, comprising: a network interface operable to receive an order for manufacture of a product; and a processor operable to couple to the network interface, to generate a first electronic bill of material for the product, the first electronic bill of material identifying a plurality of primary components to be assembled into the product, to identify a trigger initiating substitution of one of the primary components, to identify a plurality of potential substitute components in response to the trigger, to identify a substitution rule governing selection of one of the potential substitute components, to select one of the potential substitute components according to the substitution rule, to substitute the selected one of the potential substitute components for the one primary component, and to generate a second electronic bill of material for the product, the second electronic bill of material identifying the selected one of the potential substitute components; wherein the trigger is selected from the group consisting of: deviation of an availability of the one primary component from a deadline associated with the first electronic bill of material by at least by a predetermined amount; cost associated with the one primary component exceeding a threshold cost associated with the one primary component; and an incompatibility between the one primary component and a customer; wherein selecting one of the potential substitute components according to the substitution rule comprises: sorting a list of the potential substitute components according to a parameter, the parameter selected from the group consisting of availabilities of the potential substitute components, identities of manufacturers of the potential substitute components, costs of the potential substitute components, and models of the potential substitute components; and selecting a first one of the potential substitute components on the sorted list; wherein the substitution rule identifies incompatibilities between particular primary components and particular potential substitute components and prevents selection of the particular potential substitute components based on the identified incompatibilities; wherein the network interface is further operable to transmit the second electronic bill of material to a remote manufacturing facility; and wherein the second electronic bill of material conforms to an extensible markup language (XML) standard.