3D Configurators

We live in a world of mass customization – ever more industrial and consumer goods can be custom-tailored to the needs of the end user – and by the end user. This customization process is carried out by using a very special piece of software, namely a configurator. The configurator is the user interface for customization, and it determines whether the customization process is a joyful shopping experience – or a pain. The critical importance of configurators has triggered considerable research.

Frank Piller from RWTH Aachen has initiated the Configurator Database project with an extensive collection of 900 mass customization companies using configurators, interestingly 30% from USA and 30% from Germany. And Egoo is a German shopping portal featuring more than 500 companies ranging from gift shops to furniture makers, all offering configurable products.

Most configurators are 2D, and only a fraction of them is using 3D – although most products are three-dimensional. To enter the market, we pursue a 2-step strategy: First we want to address the mass customization market, with companies already offering configurable products. Egoo and the configurator database are excellent starting points, and we will create mock-ups of better configurators to address these companies directly.

In the second step we want to address an even much larger market: We consider each and every manufacturing company in Austria and Germany a potential client, as long as their manufacturing process admits some variability. We want to help companies to offer more variants and custom products, which can be very lucrative for them. To become visible, we will create a few high-quality configurator showcases, at first in the domains we know well: Jewelry, 3D printing, furniture, but also some more extraordinary ones to show off. One very promising domain is wood, especially in Austria, which is extremely variable in shape.