Product Configuration

Some of the recent proposals of web-based applications are oriented to provide advanced search services through virtual shops. Within this context, this paper proposes an advanced type of software application that simulates how a sales assistant dialogues with a consumer to dynamically configure a product according to particular needs. The paper presents the general knowl- edge model that uses artificial intelligence and knowledge-based techniques to simulate the configuration process. Finally, the paper illustrates the description with an example of an application in the field of photography equipment.

Constraint satisfaction is becoming the paradigm of choice for solving many real-world problems. To date, most approaches to constraint satisfaction have focused on solving a problem using some form of backtrack search. Furthermore, the typical view is that a constraint satisfaction problem will be solved only once. However, in many real-world contexts, problems are solved repeatedly over time. Also such problems often exhibit some structure. This motivates the application of some form of learning to improve the performance of search from previously discovered solutions. In this paper we present an approach that uses knowledge about known solutions to a problem to improve search. The approach we present is based on a combination of decision tree learning and constraint satisfaction. We demonstrate that significant improvements, almost an order-of-magnitude, in search effort can be achieved using this hybrid approach over traditional search. We also show that the space complexity using this approach is almost negligible. This work is of interest in domains such as product configuration, and interactive constraint solving in general where the system takes the initiative by asking questions.

Today's manufacturers increasingly face demands on customized products to meet the challenges of global competition and customer satisfaction. As a result, many manufacturers have adapted their business models to mass customization, which enables customers to order customized products tailored to their specific needs. This new model combines mass production's economies of scale with custom manufacturing's flexibility. In order to successfully

The aim of qualification is to verify whether a product meets or exceeds the reliability and quality requirements of its intended application. Qualification plays an important role in the process of product development. It can be classified by its specific purpose at different stages of the product development process. In this paper, a new methodology of product qualification is proposed based on physics-of-failure. This methodology consists of: product configuration and material information collection; application requirement information collection; strength limits and margins; failure modes, mechanisms and effects analysis; definition of qualification requirements; qualification test planning; testing; failure analysis and verification; and quality and reliability assessment. This approach to qualification ensures that it successfully addresses the failure mechanisms applicable to the product's specific design, manufacture, and application conditions.

This paper evaluates performance merits of CO 2 and R134a automotive air conditioning systems using semi-theoretical cycle models. The R134a system had a current-production configuration, which consisted of a compressor, condenser, expansion device, and evaporator. The CO 2 system was additionally equipped with a liquid-line/suction-line heat exchanger. Using these two systems, an effort was made to derive an equitable comparison of performance; the components in both systems were equivalent and differences in thermodynamic and transport properties were accounted for in the simulations. The analysis showed R134a having a better COP than CO 2 with the COP disparity being dependent on compressor speed (system capacity) and ambient temperature. For a compressor speed of 1000 RPM, the COP of CO 2 was lower by 21% at 32.2 C and by 34% at 48.9 C. At higher speeds and ambient temperatures, the COP disparity was even greater. The entropy generation calculations indicated that the large entropy generation in the gas cooler was the primary cause for the lower performance of CO 2 . # Analyse d'un syste`me de conditionnement d'air automobile utilisant du dioxyde de carbone et du R134a

Customers want individualized solutions regardless of whether the solutions comprise products, services, or any combination of them. Choice navigation support is a key capability for a company offering such mass customized solutions. We seek to identify modelling concepts for supporting choice navigation. Our findings draw from our case experiences in seven companies and scientific literature. We propose concepts such as bundles, explicit customer needs and characteristics affecting determination of the optimal solution, and high-level service co-creation process. These concepts partly extend physical product configuration conceptual models, providing a good basis for improving choice navigation support for solutions.

Expected market access gains in the US together with competition for export-oriented investment vis-à-vis China and Mexico have driven the moves towards bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) involving ASEAN member countries since the late 1990s. The proposed bilateral FTA between Thailand and the US is also premised on increased export competitiveness for Thailand in the US vis-à-vis these and other competitors by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers between the two countries, thus enabling Thailand to increase its US market share. This paper attempts to understand the actual prospects for market access for Thai products through an analysis of the bilateral trade between the two countries. The methodology followed is to: identify the most important current and potential Thai exports to the US at the sectoral level; understand their major competitors through US import market share analyses for each of these products; examine the potential for preferential tariff rates for these Thai products under the proposed FTA vis-à-vis those offered under NAFTA, US-China (MFN) and US-Chile FTA; analyse the role played by Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) such as TBTs and SPS measures; and examine the impact of Rules of Origin provisions. In order to understand the net market access gains for Thailand under the FTA, the implications of increased market access for US products in Thailand are also looked at.

Based on the increased demand for product customization and the intensified competition, manufacturing companies are today more than ever required to deliver product variants in an efficient manner. Research on mass customization has, up until now, primarily focused on clarifying the organizational capabilities defining successful mass customizers. Choice navigation is identified as one of the three fundamental capabilities. The process of building this capability does not occur as a discrete event, it is a change process. Based on literature review and analysis, this paper addresses the change process in relation to implementation of the choice navigation capabilities. A framework for performance assessment, supporting implementing of the choice navigation capabilities, is forwarded.

Many companies are currently facing the ''customization-responsiveness squeeze'', i.e. the need to simultaneously offer their customers tailored products while ensuring short delivery times. A possible approach proposed by design theory and artificial intelligence research is one of configuring products, i.e. to constrain the set of potential product variants offered to the customer to the possible combinations of pre-designed components. While product configuration has been widely explored from a strictly technical standpoint, we have only anecdotal evidence of the managerial issues arising when the customization-responsiveness squeeze is addressed by configuring products. The present study pursues this research opportunity by means of a hybrid quantitative-qualitative research design. The quantitative part of the research explores the issue under investigation by means of a survey on a sample of 122 companies located in Northern Italy and facing the customization-responsiveness squeeze. The qualitative part of the research consists of a set of interviews with key informants performed ex post in selected companies within the sample. The findings indicate that, although responding companies tend to rely on product configuration to customize their products, they are presented with a set of related difficulties as well: inadequate product information supply to the sales office, excess of repetitive activities within the technical office and high rate of configuration errors in production. Theoretical elaboration of the empirical evidence suggests that, in order to reap the full potential advantages of product configuration, changes in the organization and support systems to the order acquisition and fulfillment process are needed. r

Customers want individualized solutions regardless of whether the solutions comprise products, services, or any combination of them. Choice navigation support is a key capability for a company offering such mass customized solutions. We seek to identify modelling concepts for supporting choice navigation. Our findings draw from our case experiences in seven companies and scientific literature. We propose concepts such as bundles, explicit customer needs and characteristics affecting determination of the optimal solution, and high-level service co-creation process. These concepts partly extend physical product configuration conceptual models, providing a good basis for improving choice navigation support for solutions.

Digital design and manufacturing are critical drivers of competitiveness but only few companies and organizations have the capability to support digitali-zation across the whole Product Lifecycle. In several cases the information flow is discontinuous, the roles and the issues are not properly defined, the tools are heterogeneous and not integrated in the company organization. An approach that considers an appropriate data and information organization, an efficient internal organization and the availability of integrated software tools that are implementing the industrial best practices, could innovate important and critical aspect of the industrial processes. This paper gives an overview of the main themes related to Knowledge Management in industrial context, focusing on product configuration process. The current role of the knowledge in product configuration will be discussed. Then, a brief overview on Knowledge-based Engineering will be presented. Regarding Knowledge Based methodology, acquisition and formalization techniques and tools will be analyzed. Finally, an application focused on assembly lines configuration will be presented.

Quick and reliable response to customers' needs has been argued to be a key competitive advantage when manufacturing customized products. Anecdotal evidence and case-based research point to the importance of the effective management of information on feasible product configurations in order to achieve good responsiveness. However, no empirical, large-sample test of this contention has been done as yet. Our paper begins to close this research gap by testing a theory-derived model of how information relating to product configuration determines the responsiveness in serving customers. We find that availability of information supporting the product configuration task indeed allows companies to serve their clients faster and more accurately. We also find these benefits to be mediated by the availability to learn from past product configurations.

This paper discusses how a manufacturer and its retailers interact with each other to optimize their product marketing strategies, platform product configuration and inventory policies in a VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) supply chain. The manufacturer procures raw materials from multiple suppliers to produce a family of products sold to multiple retailers. Multiple types of products are substitutable each other to end customers. The manufacturer makes its decision on raw materials' procurement, platform product configuration, product replenishment policies to retailers with VMI, price discount rate, and advertising investment to maximize its profit. Retailers in turn consider the optimal local advertising investments and retail prices to maximize their profits. This problem is modeled as a dual simultaneous non-cooperative game (as a dual Nash game) model with two sub-games. One is between the retailers serving in competing retail markets and the other is between the manufacturer and the retailers. This paper combines analytical, iterative and GA (genetic algorithm) methods to develop a game solution algorithm to find the Nash equilibrium. A numerical example is conducted to test the proposed model and algorithm, and gain managerial implications.

The growing customisation capabilities of services, especially in Cloud scenarios, have led to the so-named Highly-configurable Services (HCSs). Such capabilities are boost- ing the demand and complexity of HCS-based applications and the infrastructure need to support them, HCS-driven solutions from now on. After a study of the existing literature we conclude that these HCS-driven solutions can be significantly enhanced in both 1) the languages to describe the configurations, a.k.a. the decision space of HCSs and 2) the techniques to extract useful information from the decision space, analysis techniques, in advance.
On the one hand, there are no Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) to describe the decision space, although there exist some very close approaches. We suggest that it is possible to improve the current landscape by designing a DSL: i) Compliant with big HCS vendors, ii) multi-item aware, iii) expressive-enough to ease the description of arithmetic-logical relationships on configurable description terms, and iv) domain-independent. In addition, this DSL must define validity criteria for checking that the decision space satisfies some basic properties such as the consistency, and the configurability. Furthermore, explanations must be provided when the decision space do not satisfy such basic properties.
On the other hand, most of the current analysis techniques such as those relate to find optimal configurations or reconfigure a multi-tenant service includes some draw-backs that can be found in emerging techniques. To overcome such drawbacks there must be developed: a) fully-functional reference implementations, b) techniques with a reuse-oriented design, and c) user-friendly interfaces.
The main goal of this dissertation is to enhance the existing support to develop HCS-driven solutions considering the aforementioned suggestions for improvement. The main contributions are a DSL to specify the decision space of HCSs called SYNOP- SIS, and a novel catalogue of analysis operations to check and explain validity criteria as well as to find optimal configurations for one or many users. As minor contributions, two solutions have been developed to improve the existing tooling support to migrate on-premise infrastructure to Amazon and to reconfigure multi-tenant service.
The cornerstone of our proposal to improve the specification techniques has been to define a DSL, SYNOPSIS, and endow it with a formal semantics based on Stateful Feature Models. Regarding our proposal to improve the analysis techniques, the key has been the organisation of such techniques in a catalogue of basic analysis operations that can be combined to support more advanced HCS-driven solutions. The applicability of our results is limited to those decision spaces that can be translated to a Stateful Feature Model, that is enough to support real-world HCSs, in our experience.

This paper presents an approach for engineer-to-order product configurations where configuration problems are represented as constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) with n-ary constraints and variables with both discrete and continuous domains. Search space is considerably reduced by using controllable variables that are independently assigned with values, and dependable variables are derived from the controllable variables. The search algorithm is based on a repair strategy in which a min-conflicts heuristic is applied along with backtracking search. A case study is provided to demonstrate how this approach can effectively solve engineer-to-order product configurations. Ce document présente une méthode de configuration de produit de conception à la demande selon laquelle les problèmes de configuration sont représentés comme des problèmes de satisfaction des contraintes (PSC), avec contraintes à base n (N-aire) et variables comprenant des domaines tant discrets que continus. L'esp...

In this paper we analyse the use of form postponement based on the positioning of differentiation point and stocking policy. Six classes of manufacturing configurations are identified based on the choice of whether or not form postponement is employed and the decision regarding the stocking policy for the final product configurations as well as for the generic component. Analytical evaluation methods based on queuing models are used to assess operational measures for each class of configuration and solution algorithms are developed to determine the optimal positioning of differentiation point and the optimal stocking levels. This allows us to compare the relative merits of all manufacturing configurations based on their respective best performances. The results of numerical experiment show how different operational parameters may influence the choice of optimal configuration, the preference of early or late postponement, and the relative cost savings obtained from employing form postponement.

Flexible production is not enough to offer the customer variety without compromising company profitability. In conditions of product proliferation, in fact, the order acquisition and fulfilment process can turn out to be a serious bottleneck, as the multiplication of the product features induces an exponential growth in the volume of information exchanged between the firm sales organisation and its customer base. Furthermore, this information has to be fed back in appropriate formats to manufacturing, with the risk of errors and delays due to the variability and complexity of product information. This study, through the discussion of a case example, reports the first results from a research on a class of information systems that support the order acquisition and fulfilment process in high product variety environments, called product configuration systems. The research indicates that the implementation of a product configuration system significantly contributed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency with which the studied company translates the customer's needs into product documentation. Moreover, the benefits pertaining to product configuration system stretch beyond operational performance, as it offers the company a way to incorporate into organisational memory product knowledge otherwise retained by individual employees. However, the introduction of a product configuration system may require significant and potentially painful changes in the way the order acquisition and fulfilment activities are organised, and necessitate a high initial investment in terms of man-hours. r

Conditional constraint satisfaction problems (CondCSPs) ad- equately capture problem change at solving time by condi- tionally identifying those variables and constraints that are relevant to final solutions. Real-world tasks with dynamic behavior, such as configuration, design, diagnosis, planning, and hardware test generation, have been modeled more nat- urally with CondCSPs. Such interest has been matched by the development of more

Variability is the ability of a system to be efficiently extended, changed, customised or configured for use in a particular context. There is an ever-growing demand for variability of software. Software product families are an important means for implementing software variability. We present a domain ontology called Kumbang for modelling the variability in software product families. Kumbang synthesises previous approaches to modelling variability in software product families. In addition, it incorporates modelling constructs developed in the product configuration domain for modelling the variability in non-software products. The modelling concepts include components and features with compositional structure and attributes, the interfaces of components and connections between them, and constraints. The semantics of Kumbang is rigorously described using natural language and a UML profile. We provide preliminary proof of concept for Kumbang: the domain ontology has been provided with a formal semantics by implementing a translation into a general-purpose knowledge representation language with formal semantics and inference support. A prototype tool for resolving variability has been implemented.

Version 2 of the eXcursion product is a complete rewrite of the successful Windows-based X server software package. Based on release 6 of the X Window System version 11 protocol, the new product runs on Microsoft’s Windows, Windows NT, and Windows 95 operating systems. The X server is one of several components that compose this package. The other components are X Image Extension, the control panel (which constitutes the user interface for product configuration), the error logger, the application launcher, and the setup program. An interprocess communication facility enables the eXcursion components to communicate in a uniform fashion under all three operating systems. A unique server design using object-oriented programming techniques integrates the X graphics context with the Windows device context into a combined state management facility. The resulting implementation maximized graphics performance while conserving Windows resources, which are in limited supply under the 16-bit ve...

Key challenge for mastering high uncertainty of both demand and supply is to attune products and business processes in the entire supply chain continuously to customer requirements. Product configurators have proven to be powerful tools for managing demand uncertainty. This paper assesses how configurators can be used for combined product and process configuration in order to support mastering high uncertainty of both supply and demand. It defines the dependence between product and process configuration in a typology of interdependencies. The addressed dependences go beyond the definition phase, and also include the effects of unforeseen backend events during configuration and execution. Based on a case study in the Dutch flower industry, a conceptual architecture is proposed for coordination of these interdependencies and development strategies are identified.

This paper reports on the goals and first results of the CAWICOMS 1 project. This EU-funded project has two main goals: The first one is providing technologies for the development of customeradaptive Web-interfaces for the configuration of masscustomized products. The second one is the integration of configuration systems along the supplychain. Within this paper we first motivate the demand for personalized and adaptive Web-interfaces for the domain of product configuration. In addition, we sketch scenarios where product configuration takes place at several stages in the supply chain and the involved configuration systems have to cooperatively solve a distributed configuration task. An overview of the CAWICOMS architecture is given as well as first results on distributed problem solving and the integration into the surrounding enterprise's software infrastructure.

The variability of a product line is typically defined in models. However, many existing variability modeling approaches are rigid and don’t allow sufficient domain-specific adaptations. We have thus been developing a flexible and extensible approach for defining product line variability models. Its main purposes are to guide stakeholders through product derivation and to automatically generate product configurations. Our approach is supported by the DOPLER (Decision-Oriented Product Line Engineering for effective Reuse) meta-tool that allows modelers to specify the types of reusable assets, their attributes, and dependencies for their specific system and context. The aim of this paper is to investigate the suitability of our approach for different domains. More specifically, we explored two research questions regarding the implementation of variability and the utility of DOPLER for variability modeling in different domains. We conducted a multiple case study consisting of four cases in the domains of industrial automation systems and business software. In each of these case studies we analyzed variability implementation techniques. Experts from our industry partners then developed domain-specific meta-models, tool extensions, and variability models for their product lines using DOPLER. The four cases demonstrate the flexibility of the DOPLER approach and the extensibility and adaptability of the supporting meta tool.

Model-driven software product lines combine the abstraction capability of Model Driven Software Development (MDSD) and the variability management capability of Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE). This short contribution motivates the idea of model-driven software product lines and briefly explains the concepts underlying feature-based model templates, which is a particular technique for modeling software product lines.

The problem of finding a collection of solutions to a combinatorial problem that is optimal in terms of an inter-solution objective function exists in many application settings. For example, maximizing diversity amongst a set of solutions in a product configuration setting is desirable so that a wide range of different options is offered to a customer. Given the computationally challenging nature of these multi-solution queries, existing algorithmic approaches either apply heuristics or combinatorial search, which does not scale to large solution spaces. However, in many domains compiling the original problem into a compact representation can support computationally efficient query answering. In this paper we present a new approach to find optimal collections of solutions when the problem is compiled into a multi-valued decision diagram. We demonstrate empirically that for real-world configuration problems, both exact and approximate versions of our methods are effective and are capable of significantly outperforming state-of-the-art search-based techniques.

Abstract - Developing product family is one of the most promising approaches in the mass customization paradigm. In the product family perspective, the understanding of product family metrics and modeling is crucial for decision support and analysis. Most of the current product family ...

In Software Product Lines (SPLs), product configuration is a decision-making process in which a group of stakeholders choose features for a product. Unfortunately, current configuration technology is essentially single-user-based in which user requirements are interpreted and translated into configuration decisions by a single role commonly referred to as the product manager. This process can be error-prone and time-consuming as it commonly requires back-and-forth interactions between the product manager and the stakeholders to cope with decision conflicts. In this paper, we propose an approach to Collaborative Product Configuration (CPC) that aims at providing effective support for coordinating teamwork decision-making in the context of product configuration. The approach builds on well-known concepts in the SPL arena such as feature models. The contributions of the paper include the CPC approach and the illustration of its application in a real-world product line.

In product design, concept selection for determining product configuration is a critical step because all subsequent detailed design and process design is based on decisions made at this stage. To reduce design iteration, engineers must select concepts with superior performance while maintaining minimal interaction between them. However, the existing concept selection methods evaluate product concepts based only on either performance criteria or functional coupling of concepts. To sufficiently consider the interaction of concepts caused by both constraints and functional coupling, a decision model for concept selection in configuration design is developed.

Service orientation (SO) is a relevant promising candidate for accommodating rapidly changing user needs and expectations. One of the goals of adopting SO is the improvement of reusability, however, the development of service-based system in practice has uncovered several challenging issues, such as how to identify reusable services, how to determine configurations of services that are relevant to users' current product configuration and context, and how to maintain service validity after configuration changes. In this paper, we propose a method that addresses these issues by adapting a feature-oriented product line engineering approach. The method is notable in that it guides developers to identify reusable services at the right level of granularity and to map users' context to relevant service configuration, and it also provides a means to check the validity of services at runtime in terms of invariants and pre/post-conditions of services. Moreover, we propose a heterogeneous style based architecture model for developing such systems.

The aim of this work is to assess the flexibility of production allowed by the extensive conditions of production faced with variations in the environment (market variations and climate fluctuations) of the Limousine beef systems. The study used a case-based methodology in which seven beef farms with less than 1 LU/ha were chosen. Data collection was based on three interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire and on the analysis of the productive and economic results for a 15-year period (1991-2005). The main evolution of these farms is related to an increase in work productivity associated with an increase in herd size. Herd increase was made possible by enlarging the area, the margin of intensification being limited in these regions. To take advantage of the enlarged land area, females were reared for fattening or for reproduction instead of selling them at weaning. The Limousin female provides a wide product mix because of its plasticity, as has been studied by several researchers. This diversification and capacity for adaptation from one product to another is the mix flexibility. This mix flexibility is achieved by delaying product differentiation; it is a form of production flexibility that can reduce the risk of under-producing or over-producing through varied product configurations. Calves sold to the Italian market after weaning are generic products, associated with a flexible production process to overcome fluctuations in forage availability due to climate variations. The introduction of maize silage for feeding acts as an alternative route (actual and potential) through the system to overcome unexpected forage shortage from natural grasslands as a result of droughts. The study shows that extensive farming systems have developed types of flexibility to match different factors of uncertainty from the environment. An important challenge for further research on flexibility is to develop knowledge regarding the relationship between time and extent of change: a better understanding of when to change is crucial to remain competitive.

The aim of qualification is to verify whether a product meets or exceeds the reliability and quality requirements of its intended application. Qualification plays an important role in the process of product development. It can be classified by its specific purpose at different stages of the product development process. In this paper, a new methodology of product qualification is proposed based on physics-of-failure. This methodology consists of: product configuration and material information collection; application requirement information collection; strength limits and margins; failure modes, mechanisms and effects analysis; definition of qualification requirements; qualification test planning; testing; failure analysis and verification; and quality and reliability assessment. This approach to qualification ensures that it successfully addresses the failure mechanisms applicable to the product's specific design, manufacture, and application conditions.

The maintenance of enterprise application software at a customer site is a potentially complex task for software vendors. This complexity can unfortunately result in a significant amount of work and risk. This paper presents a case study of a product software vendor that tries to reduce this complexity by integrating product data management (PDM), software configuration management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM) into one system. The case study shows that by combining these management areas in a single software knowledge base, software maintenance processes can be automated and improved, thereby enabling a software vendor of enterprise software to serve a large number of customers with many different product configurations.

Offering to customers a high variety of products while guaranteeing competitive prices and reasonable delivery times is an ever-increasing necessity for companies. At the same time, the growing technological content of products contributes further to this complexity, introducing new challenges to management. As for any area of company activity, the creativity of software producers has brought about the development of information science systems, such as Product Configuration Systems, Product Data Management systems (PDM) and Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM), which all promise to alleviate the problems caused by this complexity.

Most of the algorithms developed within the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) framework cannot be used as such to solve interactive decision support problems, like product configuration. Indeed, in such problems, the user is in charge of assigning values to variables. Global consistency maintaining is only one among several functionalities that should be offered by a CSP-based platform in order to help the user in her task; other important functionalities include providing explanations for some user's choices and ways to restore consistency. This paper presents an extension of the CSP framework in this direction. The key idea consists in considering and handling the user's choices as assumptions. From a theoretical point of view, the complexity issues of various computational tasks involved in interactive decision support problems are investigated. The results cohere with what is known when Boolean constraints are considered and show all the tasks intractable in the worst case. Since interactivity requires short response times, intractability must be circumvented some way. To this end, we present a new method for compiling configuration problems, that can be generalized to valued CSPs. Specifically, an automaton representing the set of solutions of the CSP is first computed off-line, then this data structure is exploited so as to ensure both consistency maintenance and computation of maximal consistent subsets of user's choices in an efficient way.  2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

Feature-based model templates have been proposed as a technique for modeling software product lines. We describe a set of tools supporting the technique, namely a feature model editor and feature configurator, and a model-template editor, processor, and verifier.