Methods and systems for automatically modeling a relationship between a configurable product and a plurality of components

A computer system for automatically modelling a relationship between a configurable product and a plurality of components of the configurable product as a bill of materials, wherein the configurable product and the plurality of components are related to one another by a plurality of selection conditions, the system comprising:

• a processor device arranged to receive and process data relating to the product;
• and
• a generating module arranged to generate in demand planning a plurality of characteristic value combinations representing the plurality of selection conditions and a modelling module arranged to model the bill of materials using the characteristic value combinations, wherein the bill of materials is used to control the supply of the product.

A demand planning apparatus for automatically modelling a relationship between a configurable product and a plurality of components of the product as a bill of materials, wherein the configurable product and the plurality of components are related to one another by a plurality of selection conditions, the apparatus comprising:

• a storage medium having recorded therein processor readable code processable to automatically model the relationship between the configurable product and the plurality of components of the product as a bill of materials, the processor readable code comprising generating code for generating in demand planning a plurality of characteristic value combinations representing the plurality of selection conditions and modelling code for modelling the bill of materials using the characteristic value combinations, wherein the bill of materials is used to control the supply of the product.