Product Configurator

Configure to order, assemble to order, make to order and engineer to order. A model asks questions, rules constrain the answers, and resolving a configuration produces an item, a bill of material or an engineering request.

13 steps · 10 questions · 14 screens on this shelf

The screens on this shelf

Workspace Configure a Product Answer the model’s questions and watch the price, the lead time and the fulfilment strategy resolve as you go. 11 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Models A configurable product and how a configuration of it gets made — configure, assemble, make or engineer to order. 14 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Questions The questions a model asks, in order. How many answers each takes decides whether it is a radio button or a checklist. 12 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Options The answers. An option with an item puts a part in the product; one without is a characteristic that changes price and paperwork. 14 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Rules Two kinds of rule in one list. CONSTRAINT rules say what may be chosen, as explicit pairs, because a rule has to be explicable to a salesperson standing in front of a customer. PROCESS rules say what the choice MEANS — which component, in what quantity, through which operation, with which inspection — and carry a condition written in the ordinary expression language. 13 stepsOpen Workspace Configurator · Workbook The whole definition of a configurable product — models, characteristics, values, rules written as IF … THEN … sentences, components, operations and sub-assembly structure — as one Excel workbook to download, edit and upload; or many rules pasted as text at once. 11 stepsOpen View Configurations What customers actually configured, what it came to, and whether it can be made yet. 16 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Parameters The named constants a calculation rule leans on — the process allowance, the cutting allowance, a density. Named so a formula reads as a sentence rather than as arithmetic over numbers nobody can place. 12 stepsOpen Records Configurator · Sub-assembly Inheritance Which of a parent model’s answers travel down to a child model, and under what name there. Without the map a sub-assembly is configured in isolation, and a 12 mm machine acquires a 10 mm axle. 12 stepsOpen View Configured · Components Every part the rules put in a configuration, at the quantity their formulas computed, with the rule that chose it. The answer to “why does this order have this part”. 13 stepsOpen View Configured · Routing The operations a configuration resolved to, in sequence, with the work centre, the time the rules computed and what each costs. A galvanizing operation that is not there is the answer to “why is this one cheaper”. 12 stepsOpen View Configured · Inspections The inspections a configuration’s characteristics decided on — incoming, in-process and final. The same rules that chose the parts choose what is measured. 13 stepsOpen View Configured · Cost Sheet The rolled-up cost of a configuration, element by element — material, labour, machine, setup, outside processing, scrap, freight, packaging and overhead. A total nobody can check is a total nobody can defend. 15 stepsOpen View Configured · Why Every fact about one configuration in one list: what was answered, what was computed from it, what that selected, and which rule did it. The screen a production engineer opens when an operator asks why the traveller says what it says. 13 stepsOpen

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