Patent ID: 7251569

Claim:
A method for analyzing a product including parts, wherein each part includes at least one material, each material includes at least one substance, and each substance has a respective substance amount, with at least one database including relationship information for the product, parts, materials, substances, and substance amounts, the method comprising the steps of: receiving an instruction to select a product, the product including at least one part having two or more vendors; retrieving, from the database responsive to the received product selection instruction, relationship information including substance amounts of the parts for the selected product, wherein each part having two or more vendors has a substance amount associated with each vendor of that part; and processing the retrieved select relationship information to determine at least one of (1) a materials breakdown or (2) a compliance status for the selected product for presentation to a user, wherein said processing step comprises selecting, for each part having two or more vendors, a maximum substance amount from the substance amounts associated with the two or more vendors for those parts for use in the determination.