Web-based configuration design system for product customization

Abstract

In mass customization, web-centric knowledge-based configuration systems have become an important tool to help customers configure products that satisfy their different needs and the complex configuration constraints of a product family (PF). An effective knowledge representation scheme and the associated reasoning mechanisms are essential for the success of these systems. This paper presents an object-oriented approach that integrates the functional and structural models of a PF with design process knowledge. Invasion-based search algorithms are proposed to deal with different situations in product customization and heuristic knowledge is introduced in these algorithms to improve the search efficiency. Optimization models have been constructed in terms of customers’ preferences to provide them with the highest satisfaction in product customization. Based on the representation scheme and reasoning algorithms, a web-based configuration system prototype is developed to support product customization. An example of a bicycle family is used as a study case and described in details.