Patent Document ID: 7899768
Application ID: 11771380
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method of constructing a scalable feed-forward model of a process for fabricating a product and presenting the model to a user in a tangible form, the product including one or more of a physical item, information produced, and information required in the product fabrication process, said method comprising: defining, via a computer system, each segment and component for inclusion into the model, where each segment is an internal product of the process that is not a component of another internal product of the process, where each component is at least one of an internal product of the process that is a component of another internal product of the process, an internal product including one or more of a physical item, produced information, and information utilized in the fabrication of the product; defining, via the computer system, external products for inclusion into the model as products in which no input relationship there between is specified, an external product including one or more of a physical item, produced information, and information utilized in the fabrication of the product; determining which of the defined segments are final segments of the process, by determining which of the segments are not inputs to another segment; initiating construction of the model using the final segments; organizing the non-final segments, components, and external products into a hierarchy extending from the final segments, based upon which of the non-final segments provide an input into another segment and one or more of external products, internal products, and components that provide an input into a segment to complete the feed-forward model of the product fabrication process; and expressing the model to a computer-readable medium in terms of the defined final segments, defined non-final segments, defined components, and defined external products.