Foresight Vehicle Project: Increased Customer Responsiveness through Late Product Configuration

This paper presents the concepts underlying the development of a generic late product configuration tool implemented within a small commercial truck manufacturer. The design concepts involve the use of basic PDM systems functionality in providing the availability and visibility of relevant and accurate product data, and the use of object oriented technology to implement the configuration process within the late configuration tool.

The objectives of the tool are given along with an overview of its structure and operation. As the proposed tool is targeted on small and medium manufacturers, (SMEs), the platform for the system development is based on a proprietary relational database that is widely available to them.