Hi Mark, thanks for the response, I knew that my problem had a name but I did not remember it. I will search for Bill of Materials. I agree with you that the generic solution will be a challenge and if I'll accept it I'll try to follow the KISS method for sure. At the moment there are no plans to support multiple currencies (only euro). Thanks a lot, Giovanni On 1/9/06, Mark W. Farnham <mwf@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > The topic you probably want to google is Bill of Materials (BOM), sometimes > also Bills of Materials (still BOM). > > Prepare to be overwhelmed by complexity. Consider that each "atomic" part > may be itself an item for sale as well as a component part in varying > quantities of multiple subcomponents of other items for sale. > > The "generic" solution is indeed a challenge. Each part may be available > from multiple different sources, possibly with different costs (including > shipping costs and taxes that may vary for a part that "costs" the same to > build). > > As you peruse the available documentation of existing schema designs for > this problem, you'll probably want to pare down the noise to systems that > integrate order management, manufacturing, and store inventory management > (at a minimum). > > Usually I favor the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid). In the matter of > store inventories my experience is that dodging even little bits of the real > world complexity leads to iterative disaster. Say, do you have any interest > in currency conversions? > > Regards, > > mwf > -------------------------------------------------------------------- Another free oracle resource profiler http://sourceforge.net/projects/oraresprof/ Now version 0.9 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l