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Prerequisites:
The Configurator module must be activated. If you have not yet purchased a license for it, please contact your project manager or a Seradex Sales Representative.
Module Overview:
The Product Configurator allows a business to quickly add options, sizes and colors to their basic item to meet the individual customer’s needs. An example of the difference between a configured and non-configured product line can be found within the fast-food hamburger industry.
A large, well-known hamburger chain offers non-configured products and attempts to meet their customer’s needs by offering a variety of popular hamburgers. In effect each item sold is a separate inventory item. Each customer that orders a "Big Mac" gets the identical product - pickles, lettuce, special sauce, etc.
A competitor, who advertises, "We make it your way", provides a configured product. The customer orders the basic hamburger and then chooses from a variety of condiments to create a custom hamburger that more closely meets the needs and tastes of the individual. By allowing the customer to choose the options this vendor can offer a much larger product line based upon the large variety of combinations available.
This same concept can be seen in many manufacturing applications. Let’s use a fictitious furniture company as an example. Their basic product line is made up of four types of tables in a variety of sizes, finishes and edge treatments. Given the variety of customer choices, there are 1,008 possible combinations of round tables, 720 possible combinations of square tables, 5,040 possible combinations of rectangular tables and 2,880 possible combinations of boardroom tables.
Without a Product Configurator this company would have to create an item database of 9,648 items, each with its own bill of materials (BOM). Maintaining this database, adding new finishes, updating new costs or prices and adding new items would be a very cumbersome task. These issues are for a company that produces only four types of tables.
By using the Product Configurator, our database contains only 72 items. A modification means having to change only the item that was affected, rather than modifying all the products that it may impact. Maintenance becomes much easier and more accurate improving the quality of your database and reducing the opportunity for errors and omissions.
The Product Configurator module is designed with ease of use and flexibility in mind. It provides the user the ability to take an order for a product that is composed of various attributes such as color, size and fabric or dimensional characteristics such as length, width, height, etc. The bill of materials and routing will be generated automatically upon completion of the configured item.
The typical work flow for a configured order is as follows.
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