Configuration

The article presents essays from the configuration workshop held in August 2006 as part of ECAI in Riva del Garda, Italy. The essays address reasoning techniques, user interaction, business integration, and finally presents a practical case study. These essays aim to give the readers insight into current trends and challenges in configuration. If you order a computer system online, you likely have the opportunity to customize it to your individual needs: you can choose from different CPUs and main memory sizes, select the appropriate graphics card and hard drive, and so on. However, if the ordering system doesn´t accept your configuration as is, you´ll have to modify it. For example. a large LCD screen might require a special graphics card, or the CPU you´ve chosen might require a special main board, With more complex products, such as cars, the situation gets even more complicated - for example, you can choose from hundreds of equipment options when ordering a Mercedes, resulting in millions of possible combinations. Product configuration, the business process that supports these choices, offers both opportunities and challenges