Time Estimation for Product Configuration Systems Projects

Companies providing customized products increasingly apply product configuration systems (PCS) in supporting sales and design activities, thus achieving substantial benefits. While there is extensive literature on the benefits of utilizing PCS, the cost of developing and maintaining PCS has not been explored to the same extent. This makes it difficult to put the benefits into perspective. Having a more accurate method of quantifying the cost of both developing and maintaining PCS, gives a value not only to researchers but also to practitioners when making business cases and improving resource planning in PCS projects. This article shows how historical data can be used to estimate the workload for developing and maintaining new PCS by taking into consideration both cognitive complexity and integrated IT systems. The analyses in the article are conducted in collaboration with a case company that aims to improve its capabilities when estimating cost based on man-hours for new PCS projects.