Patent ID: 8396739

Claim:
A system for estimating a cost relevant to producing a custom product by efficiently soliciting input from a plurality of various departments, the system comprising: non-transient computer readable media containing software that is able to direct the actions of a computer so as to carry out the steps of: accepting collaboration data from a user of the system; storing the collaboration data in a relational database; interpreting the collaboration data so as to assign input of each of a plurality of required items of estimation data to one of the plurality of departments; for each of the departments, creating a customized data input interface that solicits only the required items of estimation data assigned to the department for input, creating the customized data input interfaces not requiring alteration of previously entered software code and not requiring selection of a previously created data input interface; presenting to each of the departments the data input interface that solicits the items of estimation data assigned to the department for input; upon input of all required estimation data by the departments, estimating the cost relevant to producing the custom product; and providing the estimated cost to a user of the system.