Cost Benefit Analysis in Product Configuration Systems (short paper)

1Companies’ reports indicate a mixture of success and failure in Product Configuration Systems (PCS) projects. Moreover, the attention paid to PCS across different industries is increasing. Therefore, more studies are needed to analyze risks, costs, and benefits of PCS. This paper uses real case projects to demonstrate the cost-benefit analysis of PCSs in real industrial setups. Hence, this article quantifies savings in terms of reduced working hours, and the cost implications with reference to development, implementation, and maintenance. The study fills the gap in previous research by addressing what the influence of other factors on gained cost-benefits from PCSs are likely to be. This study aims to explain why some PCS projects are more costeffective than the others. While there are a number of factors affecting the cost-benefit analysis in PCS, the focus of this study remains mainly on the number of users and complexity of the project. The comparison in the case studies revealed that both factors have a positive direct correlation with the gained costbenefits from PCSs.

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