ORISA CREALIS® product configurator in the form of a cloud edition

Many requirements could be covered by using CREALIS® standard functions In the course of introducing the merchandise management system Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Rollo Solar® Melichar GmbH came up with the idea of introducing the topic of configuration there in order to improve the quality of the quotes. In June 2018, Rollo Solar® launched their product configuration project. The structural outlines of the solution concept were already drafted during the first draft. In principle, the actual modelling was ready very quickly. For the development of a prototype of the Rollo Solar® configurator, a manageable spectrum was initially selected from the product range. Its successful implementation was followed by the first optimisations and the successive expansion with the collection of master data, price lists and technical documentation as well as modelling. Many requirements could be covered by using CREALIS® standard functions. So that changes and extensions to the components and the mapping of the network of relationships can be entered into the configurator by the involved Rollo Solar® employees themselves, they took part in a dedicated training course. The models can thus be developed and maintained independently of the software manufacturer. By the end of October, the first realisation stage had been successfully completed.

In the future, production orders and maintenance contracts could also be generated with the quote generation process The configurator met with a great response due to its simple intuitive operation, fast provision and the high degree of perfection of the results. However, the complete roll-out of the configurator for the dealer network is still pending. It suggests a noticeable increase in enquiries and ultimately in orders, with a simultaneous decrease in return rates. The time needed to generate a quote has dropped to one tenth. Rollo Solar® recognised that there was definitely further potential for automation. However, it makes sense to go through a certain consolidation phase, to gain further experience and to analyse some processes that are still carried out manually. “We are in the final roll-out and testing phase, in particular carrying out a validation of the final modelling. In principle, nothing stands in the way of a full release in the first quarter of 2019,” reported Felix Thormann. “We are thinking of offering maintenance contracts with the quote generation in the future. A further step could be to also automatically generate production orders with the parts lists resulting from the configuration.”