A New IT Architecture for the Supply Chain of Configurable Products

Many ERP systems support configurable materials. Due to an ever increasing number of product variants the benefits of this approach are well understood. However, these implementations are not standardized. In this article we propose a new standard interface for the exchange of configuration data. This would lead to further benefits as systems as Advanced Planning systems could better use manufacturing flexibility while web shops as Amazon could easily integrate manufacturers of complex products with much reduced implementation effort.