Ordering/order receiving system

A method of managing reception of orders for plural kinds of products and placement of orders for parts used for production of the products by an information processing unit, the information processing unit having storage means in which Bill of Materials data indicating parts configuration of each of the products and stock amount data about the parts used for the production of the products are stored and arithmetic processing means, the method comprising the steps of:

• classifying the parts used for production of the plural kinds of products into common parts used for production of two or more kinds of products out of the plural kinds of products and optional parts other than the common parts based on the Bill of Materials data in the storage means by means of said arithmetic processing means;
• calculating the amount of the common parts and the amount of the optional parts necessary for producing the kinds of products to achieve a forecasted sales of the plural kinds of products as order placement data based on a forecasted sales amount of the products and Bill of Materials data in the storage means by means of said arithmetic processing means;
• determining increase parameters of the amount of the optional parts contained in the order placement data, based on amount of actually used assemblies of each category used for the plural kinds of oroducts and on the amount of products scheduled to be used;
• correcting the amount of the optional parts based on the increase parameters;
• adding an amount of the optional parts delivered and an amount of the common parts delivered to stock amount data about parts corresponding to the common parts and the optional parts by means of said arithmetic processing means if response information including the amounts of the common parts and the optional parts delivered is received in response to the order placement data;
• assigning the common parts and the optional parts to required amount of the products based on the Bill of Materials data by means of said arithmetic processing means if required amount of products of the plural kinds are accepted;
• subtracting the amount of the assigned common parts and the amount of the assigned optional parts from the stock amount data about the parts corresponding to the common parts and the optional parts by means of the arithmetic processing means;
• then assigning excess amount of optional parts indicated by the stock amount data about the common parts and optional parts corresponding in amount to the excess amount of common parts for each of the plural kinds of products by means of the arithmetic processing means;
• and
• outputting the amount of products of each kind to which the excess amount of common parts and the optional parts have been assigned as the amount of products of the kinds for which additional orders can be received,
• wherein the arithmetic processing means determines a ratio of increase of the amount of the optional parts contained in the order placement data, based on amount of actually used assemblies of each category used for the plural kinds of products and on the amount of products scheduled to be used.