METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RESOURCE REQUIREMENT PLANNING AND GENERATING A PRODUCTION SCHEDULE USING A UNIFORM DATA MODEL

A method for representing the structure of an article of manufacture having a plurality of design variants includes defining a plurality of positions corresponding to different predefined locations on the article of manufacture and assigning at least one variant to each position. Each variant identifies a specific part that may be used in the respective position or a specific type of connection between a pair of parts. In any given position, at most one part or connection variant can be selected. Code rules are defined for each variant which indicate when a particular variant should be used in accordance with specified design options. The position and variant representation can be implemented as part of a bill of materials used for manufacturing resource planning. Improved methods for defining the code rules, for evaluating the code rules in the bill of materials to determine manufacturing parts requirements for a plurality of orders, and for generating documentation for manufactured variants of the article are also disclosed.