Business and product lifecycle benefits of digital configuration threads

What you’ll learn:

Conflicting and often inconsistent systems of records in engineering, manufacturing, sale and service functions make it difficult to produce customizable products at a profit.
A digital configuration thread can help organizations immensely as they grapple with these various challenges.
You might have one set of rules in place when you order the product, but that set of rules may have changed when you then get to the manufacturing and the delivery.

Today’s manufacturing landscape of mass customization and market-driven product development requires speed, accuracy, and efficiency. Conflicting and often inconsistent systems of records in engineering, manufacturing, sale and service functions make it difficult to produce customizable products at a profit. Furthermore, conducting business across multiple markets and adapting to local regulatory requirements requires attention to detail and a means of tracking for compliance.

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A digital configuration thread can help organizations immensely as they grapple with these various challenges. A digital thread is the representation of a product’s lifecycle that connects data from design to disposal. A digital configuration thread builds on this to provide a framework that enables connection, orchestration, and presentation of the features that make up each product variant over the lifecycle of the product.

Configuration in this context refers to selecting specific values for each of the features of the model for the product that you’re configuring. When you deal with configurable products, one of the challenges you deal with is many possible combinations.

An automobile manufacturer, for example, may have millions of different, valid combinations of features that can be offered to consumers. For these and other manufacturers of complex products, using a digital configuration thread can bring several benefits.

Why engage digital configuration threads?

A digital configuration thread contains the specific values for each of the different available features. Based on this, you can derive additional information, such as the bill of materials, the specific CAD drawing for that configuration, or the price calculation that determines the cost of that particular product.

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When a customer selects values for the features, they establish that configuration at that time. If you have an engineer-to-order process, you might even have that choice being made much sooner in the design phase. But at some point, you go from the possible available configurations down to the specific instance. Then you start a journey of how to manage that instance over the lifecycle of that product.

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The configuration thread is a sequence of these configurations, each linked to its previous versions. So, you can trace one configuration all the way back to its original iteration. But the thread also contains a reference to the data that was used to create the configuration. And that's quite important because nothing is standing still.

You might have one set of rules in place when you order the product, but that set of rules may have changed when you then get to the manufacturing and the delivery. So, you also need to manage how these configurations, even if they stay the same, refer to this rule set and are updated accordingly.

Four top benefits of digital threads

Here are four important ways that having a digital configuration thread will benefit your operations:

Reduce service time from weeks to minutes: Imagine that you must service a commercial aircraft engine, which requires having the right tools and parts available, along with the right software in some cases. Knowing the exact configuration to be worked on is an enabler to getting it right the first time.

Downtime can be disastrous for some companies; having a machine down for days or even weeks can be extremely problematic. Being able to take care of service issues quickly without significant impact can go a long way to creating a happier customer.

Upgrade existing systems: Imagine a tractor that was sold years ago, and now the owner wants an upgrade. How do you enhance it with new capabilities? What will fit today with this older product? To answer that question, you need to first understand what was sold to the owner originally. That’s where a configuration thread comes in.

You also need to know how you can upgrade that older configuration, because some of the features that were available back then are no longer available. A configuration model can help you perform this upgrade.

Optimize products and save inventory: You can do a statistical analysis by combining all sold configurations with the parts needed to deliver each configuration. Based on such statistics, you can then determine the probability of a certain combination being selected, which combined with the bill of materials, allows you to identify variants that are very likely or very unlikely.

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One large automaker did this and realized that while there were 96 different types of one particular part, only seven of them were used in 80% of orders. Having this type of knowledge can help reduce some of the complexity and save costs; for example, it may make more sense to start bundling some of these features together, thereby reducing the internal complexity.

Improve regulatory compliance and traceability: Manufacturers must comply with a number of regulations that are rapidly evolving. One example is the digital passport initiative in the EU, which specifies that for any product, you must be able to look up the full supply chain of what’s in that product. However, for configurable products, there isn’t just one such passport; there’s an individual passport for every possible combination of the product.

To be able to show customers the full supply chain for each potential configuration, a manufacturer needs to be able to easily pull that information from a database based on the configuration string. With the digital configuration thread approach, you can save the configurations, retrieve them and associate metadata with those configurations to help you manage them.

Start your digital thread journey now

Digital configuration threads are necessary during this time of customizable, complex products. These threads save time and money by making visible the entire lifecycle of each unique product you make.

The information in these threads empowers manufacturers to reduce service times, achieve and maintain compliance, optimize products and more easily upgrade existing systems.

With all these benefits, your competitors aren’t waiting for you to catch up. Now is the time to implement a digital configuration thread strategy in your company.