Developing a Matrix Based Sales Configurator for Modular Product

For several years, the structuring approaches for modular product families have been developed in industry. The modularization leads often to the use of configurator, which is a computer application used to manage the relations of modules, connections and rules between different customer segments. Configurator brings benefits to the whole delivery process, by removing the information gaps from which are needed in the product order. Matrix based sales configurator can make order delivery process to go through faster, and especially help to keep the product knowledge of modules and modular structures of complex products in order as well as to make the updating of them easier by its illustrative user interface. MS Excel was used in the first developed version of the sales configurator prototype and it was found to be good platform for testing configurability in machine industry companies, because of its prevalence. Second development version, the server-client sales configurator expanded the possibilities of the application and improved user safety compared to the MS Excel version of the sales configurator and matrix rule table. The research project described in this paper was started because there was demand for a flexible sales configurator in local heavy machine industry. The paper describes the project where new prototype of sales configurator application was developed in just over a year in cooperation with case company from machine industry.