Development and implementation strategy for the of product configuration systems in engineer-to-order companies

Abstract

-This paper will address how to develop a strategy when developing and implementing product configuration systems (PCSs) in engineer-to-order (ETO) companies. PCSs are often gradually implemented especially where there are complex products and processes in order to break down the overall project and reduce risk. This highlights the importance of having an overall strategy to guide the long-term development and implementation of PCSs. In this paper, guideline for making the strategy are provided and supplemented with examples based on a case study. The guideline includes the main objectives for the development and implementation process, PCSs to be used to support the sales and /or the engineering processes, more uniform IT support for making product configurations, combining output from different PCSs and finally integrations that includes both internal and external IT systems. Based on this an overview of how PCSs can support the overall configuration process can be generated.

A decade of engineering-to-order (2010–2020): Progress and emerging themes

“…Grafmüller et al (2018) addressed the issue of complex mass customisation product development, deriving a business model to employ within small-medium enterprises that aim to achieve successful mass customisation strategies by using 'solution spaces'. Also, recent studies (Cannas et al, 2020b;Haug et al, 2019aHaug et al, , 2019bKristjansdottir et al, 2017) explored possible applications of product configurators in ETO companies, the challenges that ETO companies can potentially face before, during and after implementation of product configurators and the possible actions to overcome these challenges.…”

Implementing configurators to enable mass customization in the Engineer-to-Order industry: a multiple case study research

“…Indeed, in ETO industries, companies traditionally offer a high degree of customization, and thus the role of the product configurator is to allow customers and salespeople to navigate the variety (Haug, Ladeby, and Edwards 2009). Furthermore, the product configurator can be used for supporting and, to some extent, automating the sales and engineering processes (Kristjansdottir, Shafiee, and Hvam 2017). Also, Hvam et al (2013) reported as an indirect consequence that implementing a product configurator worked as a catalyst for reducing product portfolio complexity, as unnecessary complexity became more apparent during the modelling process.…”

Return on investment from the use of product configuration systems – A case study

“…The configuration task can be described in terms of a pre-defined set of components, which are described by a set of properties (attributes) and their values, connections of the components (parts), and constraints to prevent infeasible configurations [4,26]. A PCS can be implemented both to support the end-user of the product and/or as an internal tool to increase efficiency by improving the dialogue with the customer and automating the generation of product specifications [1,5,15,17,27,28].…”

“…The literature describes numerous benefits of implementing a PCS to support specification processes. A specification process can be defined as a process that is concerned with generating different product specifications (e.g., quotes, sales prices, bill of materials, CAD models), which normally involves employees from different departments [1,5]. Companies utilizing a PCS demonstrate better capability in terms of offering a variety of products, improving product quality, simplifying the customerordering process, and reducing the complexity of both processes and products, in addition to increased product profitability [6][7][8][9][10].…”