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Overview of the Product Life Cycle
Published in Jon M. Quigley, Kim L. Robertson, Configuration Management, 2019
Jon M. Quigley, Kim L. Robertson
Today, mass customization surrounds us and drives not only the product offerings but also product marketing, manufacturing, and sales. Sales offices and websites offer versions of what is referred to as a product configurator—a software program that makes it possible to add and/or change functionalities of a core product or to build a fully custom product for purchase. It uses simple and complex rules to determine the options mix, as some options do not interface well with other options, and certain options also require other options. The U.S. public sees product configurators associated with automobile and computer sales websites where a potential customer can design a vehicle or computer to meet their needs based on available options.
The evolutionary process of product configurators and characteristics of configurable products
Published in Fabio Schillaci, Product Configurators, 2017
A product configurator is a software application for designing products that match the individual needs of a customer, allowing them to choose between product features, options, and technically viable combinations.
Product configuration using redundancy and standardisation in an uncertain environment
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2021
Qinyu Song, Yaodong Ni, Dan A. Ralescu
Product configuration has become the key enabling technology for mass customisation (Yang, Dong, and Chang 2012; Trentin, Perin, and Forza 2012; Pitiot et al. 2013). It is defined by selecting components/modules from an existing component catalog and assembling or disassembling these components/modules into individualised products using a set of configuration rules (Fogliatto, Da Silveira, and Borenstein 2012). A product configuration system -- a product configurator -- is a decision support system that helps companies provide product variety and mass customisation (Salvador 2007; Hvam, Henrik Mortensen, and Riis. 2008). This system carries out a series of activities to translate the customer needs of each market segment into specific product information and generates final configuration results (Trentin, Perin, and Forza 2012). These activities include building product mathematical models, conducting sequential assembly/disassembly, representing product knowledge and rules, and so on. Nowadays, it is being successfully used in many companies, such as Dell computers (Selladurai 2004), Sony (Sanderson and Uzumeri 1995) and Reebok (Piller 2007).
The impact of applying product-modelling techniques in configurator projects
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2019
Lars Hvam, Katrin Kristjansdottir, Sara Shafiee, Niels Henrik Mortensen, Zaza Nadja Lee Herbert-Hansen
In today’s business environment, customers increasingly demand high-quality, customised products with short delivery times at competitive prices (Forza and Salvador 2007; Hvam, Mortensen, and Riis 2008; Zhang 2014). To respond to these challenges, configurators are used to support design activities, which involve gathering information from customers and generating the required product specifications (Forza and Salvador 2002a, 2007). A configurator is a knowledge-based system that supports the user in the specification process of personalised products by providing design choices, in which a set of components, along with their connections, are pre-defined and constraints are used to prevent unfeasible configurations (Felfernig, Friedrich, and Jannach 2000; Zhang and Rodrigues 2010; Eigner and Fehrenz 2011; Long et al. 2016). Thus, the use of configurators means that the generation of product specifications (e.g. quotes, sales prices, bills of materials, CAD models) can be automated (Hvam, Mortensen, and Riis 2008).