Research Issues in Knowledge-Based Configuration

Abstract

Knowledge-based configuration systems have made their way into industrial practice. Nowadays, all major vendors of configuration systems rely on some form of declarative knowledge representation and intelligent search techniques for solving the core configuration problem, due to the inherent advantages of that technology: On the one hand, changes in the business logic (configuration rules) can be accomplished more easily because of the declarative and modular nature of the knowledge bases while on the other hand highly-optimized, domain independent problem solving algorithms are available for the task of constructing valid configurations.Still, the development has not come to an end as -in a world that becomes increasingly automated and wired together -constantly new challenges for the development of intelligent configuration systems come in: Web-based configurators are being made available for large heterogeneous user groups, the provision of mass-customized products requires the integration of companies along a supply chain, configuration and reconfiguration of services becomes an increasingly important issue, just to name a few.This chapter gives an overview on these current and future research issues in the domain of knowledge-based configuration technology and thus summarizes the state of the art, recent achievements, novel approaches, and open challenges in the field.