Leveraging Product Configurators in Service Parts and Aftermarket Applications

Product configurators are employed to select and spread bills of material for production builds. Service parts and aftermarket parts typically do not participate in the product configuration process. It is assumed that service parts are identical to, or directly related to, the parts used in production. This is not always the case. Often service requires a bill of material that differs significantly from the production bill - most commonly when customers request add on features at the dealership. Requests for add on features may occur soon after the delivery of a newly built vehicle to a dealer or any point in the operational life of the vehicle.

There is an opportunity to leverage production order coding and product configuration processes to support the product after production build. Products with significant complexity and variation may benefit from a ‘service configuration’ process in addition to the ‘production configuration’ process. A service configuration process would select service specific bills of material - bills of material that would otherwise not be spread during production order coding. Service configuration can occur either post production build at the time of a customer request, or simultaneously with production coding in anticipation of a future customer request.