To gain a distinct competitive advantage, forward-thinking manufacturing companies that sell complex products are implementing a configurability strategy – providing more options and variations while using less resources.

This strategy is mandatory because today’s marketing environment continues to shift dramatically. In many industry sectors, customers no longer willingly accept whatever product is available “off-the-shelf.” They now demand products to match their specific needs. This demand-driven environment is compelling companies to drastically improve their configurability processes – supported by advanced information technology.

This executive guide identifies the two interrelated phases in a configurability strategy: developing the product, which emphasizes the essential functionality of a product configurator; and executing the strategy, which identifies the many benefits gained by optimizing configurability.

For companies selling complex products with a multitude of options and variations, developing unique, customized product configurations – without a product configurator – is a tedious and error prone process. With a poorly structured product database, identifying a valid configuration solution is both cumbersome and time consuming for the sales team, as well as the customer. The results are a major drain on a company’s valuable expert personnel – particularly engineers - and a lengthy customer response time.

A superior strategy to optimize configurability addresses these problems and enables solutions.
As the graphic depicts, the strategy encompasses two major phases:
1. Developing configurable products
2. Executing the Lead-to-Order (LTO) process in a Lean Manufacturing environment (1)

Developing Configurable Products >>