Configuration Lifecycle Management – Future of Product Configurators

The utilization of product configurators (PC) in the sales phase is a well-established solution for manufacturing companies of configurable products and it comes along with several benefits. However, there is a tendency identified currently in the industry that companies use PC to cover more lifecycle phases, such as engineering, manufacturing and service. This is described as configuration lifecycle management (CLM). Digitalization, increasing complexity and competitiveness are the main drivers of this need. This research analyses 59 case studies using PC in several lifecycle phases. The findings from the case studies confirm this tendency and the need towards a complete CLM solution is discussed.