Abstract: A system and method are provided for managing and estimating supply costs, by drilling down through detailed component lists of tree structured component specifications and rolling up pricing estimates based on predetermined, projected and available criteria and automatically accounting for costs in an organized manner. The costs may be analyzed from a historical perspective, accounting for future costs based on historical cost data within a given past or future date range. The costs may also be analyzed based on average costs of available costed items. The system and method can alternatively enable a buyer to receive quotes from suppliers to be used in estimating supply costs. Such a system may further include the ability to adapt to various supply scenarios, such as partnership splits, where multiple suppliers manufacture and supply common components to buyers at same or different prices.

Abstract: A system and method for analyzing data identifies a first set of analysis results based on a first set of data and an analysis strategy. A second set of data, which is a modification of the first set of data, is analyzed using the analysis strategy to generate a second set of analysis results. The second set of analysis results are arranged in a hierarchical format. The first set of analysis results are compared with the second set of analysis results to identify differences in the two analysis results.