Deployment of product configurators: Analysis of impacts within and outside the user company

Today many companies throughout the world recognize the need to provide outstanding service to customers: for both mass market products and products devoted to professionals, an increasing level of customization is required. This, in turn, leads to high variability in design and manufacturing processes. Hence, a structured approach to manage such variability is necessary. For an effective mass-customization program, two organizational design principles could be introduced: (i) the definition of a set of standard modules and functional criteria; (ii) the development of a tool enabling customers designing his own product. The present paper aims to analyze the impacts of a product configurator, both inside and outside of a manufacturing company. Within the internal analysis, the studied aspects include business model transformation, organization change, economic benefits. The external impacts mainly involve supply chain effects, consequences on brand perception, and impacts on society. The presented analysis is applied to a manufacturer of machines for mixing inks.