METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ALLOCATING, COSTING, AND PRICING ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES

摘要

This invention is a means both to allocate all types of resources forcommercial, governmental, or non-profit organizations and to price suchresources. A linear programming process makes fulfillment allocations used toproduce product units. A Resource-conduit process governs the linearprogramming process, uses two-sided shadow prices, and makes apertureallocations to allow Potential-demand to become Realized-demand. A strictopportunity cost perspective is employed, and the cost of buyable resources isdeemed to be the opportunity cost of tying up cash. Resource availablequantities, product resource requirements, and Potential-demand as astatistical distribution are specified in a database. The invention reads thedatabase, performs optimization, and then writes allocation directives to thedatabase. Also determined and written to the database are resource marginal(incremental) values and product marginal costs. The database can be viewedand edited through the invention's Graphical User Interface. Monte Carlosimulation, along with generation of supply and demand schedules, is includedto facilitate analysis, explore "what if", and interact with the user todevelop product offering, product pricing, and resource allocation strategiesand tactics.