A Framework for Rapid Development of Advanced Web-based Configurator Applications

For the last two decades product configurators relying on Artificial Intelligence techniques have been successfully applied in industrial environments. These systems support the configuration of complex products and services in shorter time with fewer errors and therefore reduce costs of a mass-customization business model. The EU-funded CAWICOMS project aims at the next generation of Webbased configurator applications that cope with the new challenges of today’s open, networked economy: this includes the support for heterogeneous user groups in an open market environment as well as the integration of configurable sub-products provisioned by specialized suppliers. This paper describes the CAWICOMS Workbench for the development of configurator applications that support both adaptive and personalized user interaction as well as distributed configuration of products in a supply chain. The developed tools and techniques rely on a harmonized knowledge representation and knowledge acquisition mechanism, open XML-based protocols, and advanced distributed reasoning techniques. We applied the workbench based on the real-world business scenario of distributed configuration of services in the domain of IP-based Virtual Private Networks.