Configurator Need Assessment

After you determine the business manufacturing environment and gain an understanding of the product's features, options, final assembled product, and—most importantly—the relationships that exist among them, you can determine whether you need a configurator.

For a product that is manufactured in a to-order environment and that has no relationship between the features and options or the associated parts within those subassemblies, kit processing might be the best tool. However, a configurator is not a cost-effective tool for complex, one-of-a-kind end items that you manufacture in an engineer-to-order environment.

A basic decision point in determining the need for a configurator is that the final manufactured product is complex and based on customer specifications. Also, a relationship exists between features and options; and some might not be compatible with others. Manufacturing routings and product pricing also change, based on the final end-item configured product.

If the relationships among features and options need to be defined to prevent invalid product configurations in the to-order manufacturing environment, then a configurator might be a good tool for the company.