In part inventory management, in order to accurately forecast future
number of orders of parts for which order has, for example, fallen to one
unit per month or fewer, low-order-rate parts whose order rates to have
fallen below the predetermined level are extracted, a parameter
indicating a characteristic of orders is determined and classification
into multiple categories is conducted. Then, using the parameter, an
order occurrence probability distribution is calculated for each
category. Monte Carlo simulation is carried out based on the calculated
order occurrence probability distributions to determine occurrence rate
probability distributions of number of orders during a predetermined
period, and the future number of orders of the low-order-rate parts are
forecast based on the calculated occurrence rate probability
distributions of number of orders during the predetermined period.