Product Configuration in the ETO and Capital Goods Industry: A Literature Review and Challenges

Product configurators are IT tools often used to enable choice navigation in mass customization environments, with the purpose of giving companies the ability to interact and deliver customized products to the customers. While product configurators have been widely adapted and investigated in the consumer industry, research on which challenges companies are facing in the ETO and capital goods industry, in regard to product configuration, is less extensive. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to identify challenges in applying product configuration for ETO and capital goods companies, as well as reviewing potential solutions in research, which can be applied to address these challenges. The findings show a gap between the solutions and challenges especially in the area of staging commitments of product characteristics, flexible management of alterations to the configuration design, and connecting decision criteria in product configuration with supply chain processes. The gap analysis lays the foundation for future research.