FdConfig: A Constraint-Based Interactive Product Configurator
We present a constraint-based approach to interactive product configuration with arithmetic constraints and support for optimization. Our configurator tool FdConfig is based on feature models (from software product line engineering) for the representation
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Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany [email protected] Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany [email protected]
Abstract. We present a constraint-based approach to interactive product configuration with arithmetic constraints and support for optimization. Our configurator tool FdConfig is based on feature models (from software product line engineering) for the representation of the valid product variants. Such models can be directly mapped into constraint satisfaction problems and dealt with by appropriate constraint solvers. During the interactive configuration process the user generates new constraints as a result of his configuration decisions and even may retract constraints posted earlier. We discuss the configuration process, explain the underlying techniques and show optimizations.
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Introduction
Product lines for mass customization [26] allow to fulfill the needs and requirements of the individual consumer while keeping the production cost low. They enhance extensibility and maintenance by re-using the common core of the set of all products. Product configuration describes the process of specifying a product according to user-specific needs based on the description of all possible (valid) products (the search space). When done interactively, the user specifies the features of the product step-by-step according to his requirements, thus, gradually shrinking the search space of the configuration problem. This interactive configuration process is supported by a software tool, the configurator. In this paper we present an approach to interactive product configuration based on constraint programming techniques. Building on constraints enables us to equip our interactive product configurator FdConfig with functionality and expressiveness exceeding traditional approaches [1,7,8,12,13,21,23,24]. These either support only Boolean constraints or a very restricted form of arithmetic constraints or do not take an interactive configuration process into consideration or both (for a discussion see Sect. 2). Providing an extended functionality and supporting interactive configuration, however, comes with the cost of performance penalty which must be dealt with in turn. The paper is structured as follows: In Sect. 2 we briefly review the area of interactive configuration methods and discuss related work. Section 3 introduces H. Tompits et al. (Eds.): INAP/WLP 2011, LNAI 7773, pp. 239–255, 2013. c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-41524-1 13,
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D. Schneeweiss and P. Hofstedt
important notions from the constraint paradigm as needed for the discussion of our approach. We present the constraint-based interactive product configurator FdConfig in Sect. 4. There, we introduce FdFeatures, a language for the definition of feature models, it’s transformation into constraint problems, and the configuration process using FdConfig. Furthermore, we discuss optimizations and improvements by analyses and multithreading. Section 5 draws a conclusion and points out
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