Design And Implementation Of Constraint-based Product Configurator

Since the concept of Mass Customization puts forward, it is extensive concerned about in manufacture field. This kind of production mode carries out the combination of customization and mass production, symbolizing the accumulation and integration of the nimble manufacturing, virtual factory and overall quantity management. It not only make the products satisfy the customers' characteristic needs but also make the cost and deliver date of the products similar to mass production. In this case, product configurator based on the information technology emerges as the times require, it becomes a solid foundation of mass production mode. The product configurator is mainly constitutive of three parts: product modeler, order generator and product register. The product modeler is a tool provided to the product manufacturing industry experts to design product series. Realm experts build various constraint equations according to the enterprise products, parts, part attributes and constraint relationship of attributes. After these, a general product was established. The order generator is a tool provided to the customers or sell engineers to build a product that satisfies the customers' needs. When the customers select or give the parameters' values that must make sure according to his favour and economic condition, the system will call the reasoning solver to solve the equations in the product modeler. If the values which the customers give do not conflict with the constraint equations, the system gives a configuration solution. If the values which the customers give conflict with the constraint equations, the system gives the causes and corresponding explains and tells custormers how to solve them. The product register is a tool provided to the production managers. When the order generator lists the configuration solutions, the customers choose those that are suitable for them to order. But these orders can not still become the formal product. They must be registered in the product register. The three parts above depend on mutually and work with each other. The product modeler mainly includes following modules: part management, general product management, parameter management, general product constraint management and customer interface management. The part management mainly manages the information of product parts, including searching, adding, deleting and modifying. In the general product management, this article gives the concept of the general product tree and uses the XML and XSL to show the tree. This module's duty is the management of general product, including saving the tree and adding, deleting the parts in the tree. The parameter management's duty is the management of general product parameters and its parts' parameters, including adding, deleting, modifying and usefulness examining of the parameter expressions. In the general product constraint management, this article gives the concept of the general product constraint and divides them into three kinds of basic types: the boolean constraint, the character constraint and the integer constraint. The constraints are formalization. This module's duty is in charge of the establishment, modification, deletion of the constraints and usefulness examination of the constraint equations. The customer interface management's duty is to establish the parameters' display mode by experts in order generator and provide a friendly interface for the customers. The order generator mainly includes following modules: customer data management, customer individual product maintenance management, order generator parameter interface management, configuration solving and conflict explanation management. The customer data management maintains the registration information of customers. Only the customers who have registered and been authorized can configurate the product so that the enterprise checks the customers' orders. The customer individual product maintenance management is responsible for recording customer's each action in real time within the order generator so that customer can continue configurating product without repeating if he quits the system before he finishes the configuration. The order generator parameter interface management is an extension of the customer interface management in the product modeler. This module extracts the interface information which experts configurated in the product modeler to process. In configuration solving and conflict explanation management, this article applies backtracking algorithm in CSP(constraint satisfaction problems) to configuration solving part and gives corresponding search algorithm according to the definition of general product constraint. The function of the module is to solve feasible solutions according to the constraints established by experts and the parameters' values selected by customers. The product register mainly includes following modules: customer order management and order register management. The customer order management is responsible for recording the results which customer selected in the order generator in form of order, including adding and deleting. The...