configuratorondemand

Archive for the ‘Whitepapers and Research’ Category

Software supported product configuration and mass customization go hand in hand.  Klaus Moser’s book takes a formal look at this topic.  Only the printed version has all of his references and materials, however it provides insight into a wide range of businesses, from footwear to electrical motors.

This is a formal research paper, so there is an overview of his methodology and literature.

To be honest, I trust that he knows what he is doing, so I skipped to chapter five where he talks briefly about his case subjects.

• 121TIME
• Adidas
• APC
• Audi
• BMW
• Delance
• Design&MC Lab
• Deutsche Telekom
• F.L.Smidth
• Left foot
• MarelliMotori
• Selve
• Steppenwolf
• Turo Tailor

If you are really a product configuration nerd, you’ll read this whole book.  If you are not, but want to get find out more about mass configuration in a variety of businesses, you’ll want to skim the table of contents to pick out the bits that meet your interest.

The book is available at

1. Amazon USA (affiliate link)
2. Amazon UK
3. Amazon Deutschland

Sorry to everyone who tried to access the Cincom Acquire whitepaper 7 Reasons Why (product) Configurator Projects Fail and were not able to download it. A friendly reader let me know of an error on my part and I’ve repaired it.

A product configurator white paper titled, 4 Types of Configurators – Which one is right for your business? is offered by Configure One, a supplier of on demand configurators.

The whitepaper details the possible integration and output possiblities you may need to consider, as well as detail four types of configurators.

Configure One identifies them as:

• Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) solutions
• ERP configurator modules
• Product visualization solutions
• Enterprise product configurator

and the document contains a matrix detailing the feature spectrum of each of these categories.  In addition to the matrix they outline key benefits such as:

Decrease quotation lead time between 40-80%
Reduce order lead times 10-50%
Eliminate between 40-80% of human errors

and describe further in detail.

This whitepaper, 7 Reasons Why (product) Configurator Projects Fail is good read for those of you looking at upcoming projects.  It is authored by Louis Columbus,  a former AMR analyst now associated with Cincom Aquire.

The seven corresponding sections are:

1: Not Strategic
2: Just Another IT Project
3: Doesn’t Integrate
4: No Input from Users
5: Limited Deployment Options
6: Difficult to Use
7: No Support for Complex Knowledge

This whitepaper would serve as a good instrument and guideline to support project managers who need to sensitize stakeholders and peripheral actors to the important aspects of a successful product configurator project.

Despite the fact the whitepaper is sponsored by Cincom, it leaves out any mention of the company until the very last section of suggested actions.  This makes it easy to reuse and distribute without it sounding like a hard hitting sales brochure.

A product configurator whitepaper by AMR Research, from December 2009, is available courtesy of Configura AB.  This whitepaper has involved 80 company interviews as well as investigation of 16 technology providers.  Configura was among the technology providers detailed in the report as well as many of the companies regularly covered here on configuratorondemand.com such as:

• Access Commerce,
• BigMachines,
• Cincom,
• Configit,
• Configure One,
• Consona,
• Exalt,
• FPX,
• Oracle,
• SAP,
• Selectica,
• Sterling Commerce,
• Tacton Systems,
• TDCI, and
• Technicon Interactive.

The whitepaper gives readers a solid understanding of the benefits of product configurators and insight of various applications in different types of businesses.

A valuable read for anyone evaluating their corporate configuration needs and requirements, as it covers a wide spectrum of both custom off the shelf and cloud-based (SaaS) product configurators.

Academy Software offers a scientific paper which addresses the challenges associated with collaborative product configuration as opposed to only addressing constraint satisfaction.