The present disclosure provides for supplying collaborative planning by a
computerized framework manager. Steps include furnishing network
connections and collecting supply and demand information from business
entities. Such information is analyzed and used to facilitate planning
among the business entites. The network provides data access for multiple
data sources and the network is used to store capacity data. The
computerized framework manager conducts reverse inventory management of
the business entities through the collection of data; analysis of data is
then used to predict future demand, and predicted future demand is used
to forecast costs to manufacturers, from which suggestions regarding
optimization is made.