A characteristic-based product configurator is a product configurator extension which uses a set of

discrete variable In mathematics and statistics, a quantitative variable may be continuous or discrete. If it can take on two real values and all the values between them, the variable is continuous in that interval. If it can take on a value such that there i ...

s, called characteristics (or features), to define all possible product variations.

Characteristics

There are two characteristic types: *

binary variable Binary data is data whose unit can take on only two possible states. These are often labelled as 0 and 1 in accordance with the binary numeral system and Boolean algebra. Binary data occurs in many different technical and scientific fields, whe ...

s, which describe the presence or not of a specific feature, * n-values variables, which describe a selection between n possible value for a specific product feature. FeaturesRegistry

Constraints

The range of characteristic-value combinations is reduced by a variety of constraints that define which combinations can, cannot, and must occur alongside each other. These constraints can be reflective of technological or commercial constraints in the real world. The constraints can represent: * incompatibility: they indicate the

mutual exclusivity In logic and probability theory, two events (or propositions) are mutually exclusive or disjoint if they cannot both occur at the same time. A clear example is the set of outcomes of a single coin toss, which can result in either heads or tails ...

between some product feature-values; * implication: they indicate the presence of a specific feature-value is constrained to the presence of another feature-value. Constraints

Characteristic filters

The use of characteristics permits the user to abstract the finished product by describing filter conditions, which describe subsets of product variations using

boolean function In mathematics, a Boolean function is a function whose arguments and result assume values from a two-element set (usually , or ). Alternative names are switching function, used especially in older computer science literature, and truth functi ...

s on the characteristics: * The AND, NOR, OR

logical operator In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator, sentential connective, or sentential operator) is a logical constant. Connectives can be used to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of propositional logic, the ...

s use and simplify the boolean function definitions, because they permit the user to regroup together the characteristic-values which may be present (AND), absent (NOR), or not all absent (OR); * Thanks to the decoupling introduced by the use of characteristics, it is not necessary to redefine the boolean functions when new commercial codes are introduced which can be mapped to some product-variation already covered by some characteristics combination.
ConfigurationExample

Closed or open configuration

Using a characteristic-based configurator, it is possible to define a product variation in two ways: # Open configuration: the user will simply valuate all the characteristics complying with the technological and commercial constraints, without having a set of base values to work from; # Closed configuration: it starts from a pre-selected base-preparation (representing a sub-class of product variations) which fixates a subset of characteristics, to which the user will optionally add other information valuating the (still not fixed) characteristic-values, complying with the technological and commercial constraints. It can be useful to specify that a requested characteristic-value can replace another characteristic-value that is incompatible with the requested one present in the base-preparation

Applications

Some examples of applications where using a characteristics-based product configurator may be advantageous are: *

Bill of materials A bill of materials or product structure (sometimes bill of material, BOM or associated list) is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, parts, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture an Prod ...

applications: to every part-number is associated a characteristics-filter, which selects the subset of product-variations in which the part-number will be used *

Manufacturing process management Manufacturing process management (MPM) is a collection of technologies and methods used to define how products are to be manufactured. MPM differs from ERP/MRP which is used to plan the ordering of materials and other resources, set manufacturing ...

systems: a characteristics-filter is associated to each operation that will select the subset of product variants where that operation is done * Commercial applications: the ordinality and mandatory requirements of a market are related to characteristic-filters that identify the product variations subset to which they apply

Examples

pCon.planner from EasternGraphics is an OFML-based complex product configurator used for interior design.

References

{{Reflist Computer programming