Parts Standardization - an initiative to eliminate duplicated parts and dissimilarities between similar parts to avoid duplicated parts costs and excessive inventory.

Unfortunately, duplicated parts are a common condition in many manufacturing companies, resulting from a lack of a Preferred Parts and Sources List. The estimated cost of creating one part ranges from $6,000 to as high as $25,000.

IBM, in overhauling its complete product development cycle, instituted rigorous controls on using approved parts. The company was able to reduce its part count by 50%.

Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) - evaluating product complexity early in the design process by use of analytical software tools

The result is to insure ease of manufacturing and assembly by eliminating unnecessary parts, thus reducing direct product costs, and shrinking lead-times. Computer manufacturer Dell uses DFMA methodology and software as an integral tool to the product development process. (3)

Product Line Rationalization - simplifying the product portfolio by rethinking the marketing and economic factors, including future potential and profit margins, and reassessing true marketplace needs.

A company’s current product portfolio may include some unprofitable products, and a mish-mash of options and variations that have evolved over time, in an ad-hoc manner.

Analysis of the product models, developed with a product configurator, together with price, cost and volume information from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) systems, provide useful input to this simplification process.

Product Configurator Software – a product configurator’s vital role is delineated by its definition – a software tool to create, maintain and use electronic product models that completely define the range of variations and options of a product, without the need to predefine all possible combinations with unique part numbers and bills of material (BOMs), and with a minimum of data entry.

A robust product configurator is one that automatically and seamlessly facilitates all configuration needs – sales, engineering and manufacturing – across the entire spectrum of “To-Order” products.

Once developed, the configurable product model enables all users – customers, company personnel and sales partners – to configure unique products in an efficient manner. Moreover, different versions of BOMs are facilitated. The sales team needs a detailed breakdown (BOM) sufficient to price and book an order, while manufacturing requires a complete BOM listing all parts required to produce and deliver the customer’s order. To create product models, a configurator provides a full range of product modelling functionalities, some simple, some sophisticated – that are essential to model complex manufactured products. The term “Definition Logic” covers all methods, the most common include: rules, constraints, inclusions and resources, described in the text below.

A company’s current Definition Logic – right or wrong – may exist in many different locations, including people’s notebooks and memories. Software tools, spreadsheets and flow charts can be used to document the existing and new Definition logic. Then, the new configurable product model can be developed using a choice of modeling approaches.

For Assemble-to-Order (ATO) products, the simplest form of modeling is feature-option selection, using If-Then-Else logic. For example: One, select a feature, e.g., type of engine; and, then, two, pick an option, e.g., horsepower value.