Method, system, and storage medium for facilitating excess inentory utilization in a manufacturing environment

Abstract

An exemplary embodiment of the invention relates to a storage medium for facilitating excess inventory utilization. The excess inventory includes parts used in end products. The storage medium includes instructions for a causing a computer to implement a method. The method includes translating sales specific terminology describing the end products into bill of material terminology describing the parts used in end products via a bill of material structure. The translating includes mapping between features associated with end items and parts required to build the end items. The method also includes determining an optimal build plan for the end items that, if built, would consume a desired quantity and/or type of excess inventory.

1 . A storage medium comprising machine readable computer program code for utilizing excess inventory in a manufacturing environment, said excess inventory comprising parts used in end products, said storage medium including instructions for a causing a computer to implement a method, comprising:
 translating sales specific terminology describing said end products into bill of material terminology describing said parts used in end products via a bill of material structure, said translating including mapping between features associated with end items and parts required to build said end items; and   utilizing said bill of material structure, determining an optimal build plan for said end items that, if built, would consume a desired quantity and/or type of excess inventory;   wherein said determining an optimal build plan includes: formulating constraints related to usage of parts in producing end items utilizing: data provided in said bill of material structure; and manufacturing process data resulting in at least one saleable end item, said manufacturing process data comprising at least one of: costs; revenue data; inventory data; usage rates; yields; capacities; cycle times; and alternate parts; and optimizing said constraints utilizing at least one of: heuristics; linear programming; artificial intelligence; and non-linear optimization;   wherein selecting an end item from a list of saleable items capable of consuming excess inventory comprises: applying an algorithm comprising:
 k*ei; 
   wherein k is a scalar factor referring to a selectable number operable for expressing an upper limit on how much to spend on additional parts in order to use up one dollar of excess inventory; and wherein further, ‘ei’ represents an amount in dollars of excess inventory consumed when producing one unit of an item ‘i’.   
   
   
       2 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein said mapping includes:
 sub-mapping said features wherein a feature of an end item comprises more than one distinct set of parts and parts required to build said end items.   
   
   
       3 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein selecting an end item from a list of saleable end items capable of consuming excess inventory further includes:
 utilizing user-supplied pricing information to determine which of said saleable end items, if built, would consume the most excess parts while requiring minimal additional expense.