Knowledge-based risk evaluation during the offer calculation of customised products

Abstract

The individualisation of products is a hybrid business strategy, which increases the competitiveness of production enterprises. But the inherent risks of order processing for customised products jeopardises the successful and economical implementation of this strategy: A potential risk exists within the calculation of the total costs due to incomplete information about the product and the production processes during the offer specification process as well as due to the temporal fluctuations of the prices and costs after the offer specification. This paper analyses the risks and existing methods regarding risks in offer calculation processes. The approach developed here proposes a knowledge-based system for the evaluation and configuration of risks during the order processing of individualised products. Based on a classification of the immanent risks, an evaluation method is introduced which is implemented in a knowledge-based system. The methods developed for calculation and interpretation allow for a good analysis of the risk situation of individualised products.

Environmental and safety sustainability for small enterprises through risk analysis

“…Then, on the basis of project milestones, managers define a check-list of project risks [Rimpau, Reinhart, 2010]. In our opinion this scenario may be very limited since during the offering phase managers may not know several aspects of the project.…”

Reuse of modules for mechatronic modeling and evaluation of manufacturing systems in the conceptual design and basic engineering phase

“…The risk of errors in the blueprint of manufacturing systems is reduced by the integration of knowledge in this phase of the basic engineering phase (Rimpau et al, 2010). The reuse of modules and related knowledge is described by Fay et al as an opportunity of making systematic improvements on engineering (Fay et al, 2009).…”

Optimizing the order processing of customized products using product configuration

“…In particular, PDM systems were created in order to support interfaces between different departments of a company. While the PDM is mainly meant to manage engineering product data, the product configuration system supports sales processes and connects them to the engineering and the production [1,18,19].…”