Business Environment and Configurators
Configurators are used to assist sales order entry personnel during the sales process. The information gathered and generated during sales order entry is then communicated to the organization to support manufacturing and distribution processes.
In today's competitive business environment, the ability of a business to perform many types of transactions for configured items is becoming increasingly important. Thus, sales order systems need the ability to process sales quotes and manage credit, direct ship, transfer, interbranch, and combination orders for configured items. These transactions support companies that have global operations and work closely with their suppliers.
The ability to create a purchase order for configured items is also a necessity. Some companies have suppliers who manufacture the parent configured item or a configured component that goes into the end item. The electronics industry is such a case.
Some manufacturers might want the ability to create work orders for configured items without having to create a sales order. This ability gives the manufacturer flexibility to build configured items to stock.
In some instances, a need for integration with an engineering project management module might exist. Engineer-to-order environments might have a component of the project that is a configured item. Thus, the ability to manage these items, whether purchased or manufactured, could be critical to the overall project.