1. A process comprising: providing to a computer processor a scheduling process; and providing to the computer processor an availability process; wherein the scheduling process and the availability process reside in a service architecture; wherein the scheduling process is configurable to invoke the availability process at a point in the scheduling process; wherein a user of the service architecture may configure the scheduling process, by altering a customer requirements module, to change the number of times that the scheduling process invokes the availability process and to change one or more points in time in the scheduling process from which the availability process is invoked; wherein the customer requirements module determines the processing requirements of a customer order; wherein the scheduling process includes an activity network that includes one or more activities; and wherein the activities include a lead time activity, an available to promise (ATP) activity, a pickup activity, a loading activity, a transportation activity, and an unloading activity.