Getting started with design for customization

Specialization has increased the demand for customized heavy equipment. It requires configure-to-order (CTO) and engineer-to-order (ETO) business models to meet these unique requirements cost-effectively and at scale.  Heavy equipment manufacturers implement product lifecycle management (PLM) systems to provide their diverse and widely dispersed organizations with access to a single source of product and process knowledge. Once a PLM system is in place, equipment manufacturers can better manage complexity with a single, consistent definition of variability across the product lifecycle. This white paper identifies the best-practice capabilities that a PLM system should provide to manage variability in the development process and facilitate the delivery of CTO and ETO products.