Methods and systems for modeling a bill of material for a configurable product

A computer system for managing a supply chain, the computer system comprising:

• a processor;
• a planning tool configured to run on the processor for generating a demand plan for a configurable product in a managed supply chain;
• and
• a data storage system for storing data relating to the product, wherein the data includes at least one product characteristic specifying a plurality of component products and an additional characteristic specifying a selection condition relating to the at least one product characteristic,
• wherein the planning tool includes a modelling tool configured to run on the processor device for generating a model of a bill of materials for the configurable product, wherein the modelling tool is operatively associated with the data storage system and the processor to combine the at least one product characteristic and the additional characteristic to generate a characteristic value combination, and to use the characteristic value combination to model the bill of materials, wherein the modeled bill of materials is used to control the supply of the product.

A method comprising:

• storing data relating to a product, wherein the data includes at least one product characteristic specifying a plurality of component products and an additional characteristic specifying a selection condition relating to the at least one product characteristic;
• combining the at least one product characteristic and the additional characteristic to generate a characteristic value combination;
• using the characteristic value combination to model a bill of materials;
• and
• using the modeled bill of materials to generate a demand plan with respect to the configurable product and the plurality of component products of the configurable product.