A constraint satisfaction approach to resolving product configuration conflicts

Product configuration is an essential means for selecting various components to constitute a customized product with the aim of meeting the individualized requirements of a customer. Nevertheless, configuration conflicts may occur when too strict requirements of the customer are given and thus any configuration cannot be found to satisfy the customer requirements. In this situation, it is vital important for a product configurator to recommend the corrective actions for generating valid configurations. In this paper, we present a method of applying constraint satisfaction to resolve product configuration conflicts. In the presented approach, the configuration conflict problem is encoded as a CSP (constraint satisfaction problem). Therefore, the resolution to the configuration conflict problem can be regarded as solving a CSP. As a consequence, corrective actions such as removing selected components or adding new components are suggested by the system. In the case of multiple resolving strategies, a multi-objective decision model is adopted to find the optimal repair strategy according to customer preferences. A computer configuration is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented approach.