Patent Document ID: 6078900
Application ID: 09177766
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for estimating stock levels of products in at least one warehouse and in plurality of retail locations of a production-distribution network with inventory control, the method comprising the steps of: communicating process control parameters and production-distribution network parameters; computing priorities for each of said products held at said retail locations of said production-distribution network; allocating available global and local budgets among said products; setting starting stock levels for each of said products; selecting a stock level calculation mode; computing stock levels of products and performance measures of said production-distribution network according to min G(x) where, x is a vector of stock levels x=(x.sub.01, x.sub.02,. .. X.sub.MN.sbsb.M), subject to a first constraint and a second constraint; and outputting said computed stock levels and performance measures of said production-distribution network to enable optimization of inventories in said production-distribution network.