DriveWorks Implementation Tips for Smarter Product Configuration

Evaluating product suitability for configuration

Focus your DriveWorks implementation on product families that have a high number of variants and those with well-defined rules that the engineers must follow. Identify the challenges that the engineers face.

Defining scope and aligning stakeholders

Before you begin building, define measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) for successful measurement. Clearly define what you expect from DriveWorks. That includes CAD files, drawings with dimensions that are automatically populated, Bills of Materials, manufacturing plans, and even quotations to customers.

Mapping workflows for effective implementation

Document your current design and quoting process step by step beginning at the point that the customer first makes contact with your company through to handing off all the work to manufacturing. Identify where the bottlenecks occur and where there are redundant tasks occurring between departments. These are the areas where engineering automation will provide the most benefit.

Once you have documented your workflows, then you create a plan for the product configurator. You need to map out how you wish to receive requirements from the customer, apply engineering rules, generate outputs you require and connect them to downstream systems.

Designing guided and intuitive input forms

You want to build a path for users to follow through your configurator, guiding them through the key decisions that matter. Related options go together so group them up accordingly. For discrete choices dropdown menu is going to be the best choice. Also make sure you’re only showing users what’s relevant to them at any given time.

If you’re using technical terms, keep guidance tooltips to help out your sales team. Make sure your language is consistent across the whole thing so that your sales team and engineers are on the same page even if it’s a sales configurator interface.

Example: Let’s say you’re building a cabinet configurator. Start with a simple question “What type of cabinet do you want?” (Base, wall, tall). Then use that answer to decide what other options to show them next. So if they pick a base cabinet, show the “drawer configuration” options. If they go for a wall cabinet, show the “door style” and hide all the drawer related info.

Structuring configurator logic for scalability

Implement an architecture that lets you easily build and reuse components in a modular way keeping those parts that can be used in lots of different places separate from the parts that are specific to a particular product.

You need to centralize the logic that applies to different products like pricing calculations and material lookups that always work the same way. This makes updating a whole lot easier. Make sure you set up the DriveWorks product configurator architecture to handle multi product expansion from day one, so you can easily add new products later, with flexible database schemas and rule structures to guide you.

Example: Create a central “HardwareLogic” module that calculates hinge quantities and placement for all cabinet doors. Then, when you add a bathroom vanity configurator to the mix, it can just reference the same hinge logic. You don’t have to duplicate rules and go through the hassle of getting it all set up again.

Enforcing accuracy with rule based validation

Implement dimensional checks that make sure the dimensions customers are configuring are within what you can actually make. Validate that any customer specified sizes are going to work with the material you have available and meet the structural requirements.

Prevent users from selecting materials that we know won’t work by enforcing engineering constraints. If a user tries to select conflicting options, the system should stop them from doing so or automatically adjust the dependent options so they won’t get stuck with an unworkable configuration.

You also want to make sure your engineering outcomes are compliant with the standards by embedding design standards directly into engineering automation logic.

Example: For a window configurator, if a user tries to set the width above 72 inches but only goes with single pane glass, trigger a validation message: “Windows over 72 inches need dual pane or tempered glass for structural integrity.” Block the configuration or automatically sort out the glass specification.

Enhancing configurator performance and responsiveness

The first thing you do is clearly distinguish between inputs that affect the actual design and those that just tweak metadata. Delay the full rebuild until you’re finished making changes, rather than redoing it after every little tweak. This will help reduce needless CAD rebuilds.

This smart updating is what keeps complex configurators running smoothly. You can pop up preview images or simplified graphics to give users a sneak peek without slowing things down. Hold off on the full CAD generation until you’re ready to create the final output.

Example: In a door configurator, when you change the finish color it just updates the metadata and no CAD rebuild is necessary. But if you change the door thickness, that’s a geometry recalculation. Use some pre rendered images to show off the finish options while you’re selecting and only generate full CAD when the user clicks “Finalize Design”.

Driving CAD behavior through rules

You can link your configuration rules right into the model dimensions, features and materials. When the user inputs information map that to specific CAD parameters. That way, the configurations can automatically generate the right geometry.

By automating feature suppression and patterns based on your configuration logic, you can control how many pattern instances get created and how many repetitive features get added in. This lets you adapt the quantities of components to whatever the user needs.

The following table shows what can happen when configuration inputs get translated into specific CAD behaviors through rule driven automation:

Automating outputs for engineering and manufacturing

Automatically generate complete drawing sets with all the right details like views, annotations, tables. The CAD automation with DriveWorks system produces drawings that you can export as PDFs for customers to review or DXFs straight to the manufacturing equipment.

Apply a standard set of templates and tolerances across all automated outputs to ensure it all looks consistent. Then use those to generate bills of materials with all the right part numbers, quantities & custom properties.

Synchronizing DriveWorks with CAD and PDM systems

DriveWorks can be used to automate the revision control process by linking it to your PDM (Product Data Management) system. Every time the config tool produces new CAD files, it gets the PDM system to check them in and update the version number. DriveWorks also ensures that everything remains in sync by maintaining the metadata consistent with the config inputs.

Connecting DriveWorks to ERP and CRM platforms

You can connect your sales configurator to your ERP and CRM systems using SQL, ODBC interface or web API’s. Therefore, every time someone configures something, all relevant information will be sent directly to the ERP system in the background without the need for manual BOM entry etc., removing the associated transcriptions errors.

Creating a unified configure price quote pipeline

Prices are calculated in real time as soon as selections are made based on material costs, estimated labor costs and desired profit margins. As soon as a selection is made in the product configurator tool, it will generate an accurate price immediately. On completion, it will produce a quote document containing all required detail.