System and method for inventory management and production cost estimation in paper converting environments

A process for computing, in an on-demand converting environment, the yield, production time and/or cost of converting input inventory items into custom output inventory items that meet certain output requirements, wherein it is impractical to track the input and output inventory items via a bill of materials and/or part number system because of the amorphous nature of the input and output inventory items, the process comprising:

• receiving a request for a custom paper product comprising one or more output requirements for the custom paper product, the output requirements comprising physical characteristics comprising at least one of grade, thickness, basis weight, weight, linear measure, width, length, diameter, core, quality, condition and mill source, wherein a plurality of different input inventory items could be used to satisfy the request;
• filtering, by a processor, a plurality of inventory items to identify a subset of input inventory items, the subset of input inventory items having minimum physical characteristics necessary for being converted into output inventory items having the one or more output requirements for the custom paper product, the physical characteristics comprising at least one of grade, thickness, basis weight, weight, linear measure, width, length, diameter, core, quality, condition and mill source, wherein each inventory item in the identified subset of input inventory items comprises at least one physical characteristic that is different than each other identified inventory item, the different physical characteristic being associated with at least one of each identified input inventory item having been partially converted in association with a prior conversion process and each identified input inventory item having different initial physical characteristics;
• identifying at least one of a plurality of machine implemented converting processes capable of converting each of the identified input inventory items into the custom paper product;
• identifying at least one of a plurality of converting machines capable of performing the at least one identified machine implemented converting process;
• obtaining data from a computing device, the data comprising at least one of:
• output category attributes, machine speed attributes, and process cost attributes;
• computing, in parallel by the processor, at least one of a plurality of expected yields, costs and production times for converting each of the identified input inventory items into the output inventory items having the one or more output requirements, wherein the computation is performed based on the obtained data;
• identifying, in substantially real-time based on the computing, an input to output converting process and corresponding input inventory items associated with at least one of a greatest expected yield among the plurality of computed expected yields, a lowest cost among the plurality of computed expected costs, and a lowest production time among the plurality of computed expected production times;
• and
• converting, by at least one converting machine, at least one of the identified input inventory items into the output inventory items having the one or more output requirements, the at least one converting machine capable of performing the identified machine implemented converting process by receiving the at least one identified input inventory item as an input to the converting machine and executing the identified machine implemented converting process using the at least one converting machine, wherein the output inventory items resulting from the machine implemented converting process being created from input inventory items in a more efficient manner based on at least one of converting machine run time, converting machine speed, the amount of input inventory items needed, and the number of converting machines needed.