Over the coming year, the MAC-PAC XE modules currently known as Customer Centric Configuration (C3), FlexAutomation, Customer Center , and Advanced Bid and Quote (ABQ) will evolve into a next-generation solution called BuyDesign ™.

BuyDesign will be a comprehensive ‘product customization management' solution that bridges the gaps between existing engineering, sales, and manufacturing processes to dramatically streamline the entire life-cycle of customized products. It will provide the capabilities to:

1. Simplify the product configuration process for customers and sales people, and help them better visualize their exact product.
2. Automate generation of the configuration-specific drawings and information needed by manufacturing to rapidly produce the product, as well as the drawings and other documents needed by customers, sales channels, and/or support personnel.
3. Synchronize development and maintenance of the all the information required for highly customizable products, including engineering designs, configuration controls, pricing, and product information.

BuyDesign will be organized into the following structure:

• BuyDesign Control Center – a comprehensive product configuration solution that combines the capabilities of C3 and FlexAutomation into a single configurable solution to support advanced configuration as well as management of the data to drive it. Sub components will be:
  • BuyDesign Studio – a collaborative environment for enterprise-wide management of all the models, rules, and descriptors that define, control, and support the customizability of products.
  • BuyDesign Server – the engine to drive an intuitive, visual configuration process with automated generation of configuration-specific models, drawings, and information needed by customers, sales people, and manufacturing.
    
    
• BuyDesign Applications
  • Sales BuyDesign – a flexible browser-based sales application that combines the capabilities of Customer Center and ABQ into a tailorable solution to support self-service customer sales as well as single and multi-level channel sales.
  • Engineering BuyDesign – a future application to support various uses of BuyDesign Control Center within the engineering function.
  • Manufacturing BuyDesign – a future application to support various uses of BuyDesign Control Center within the manufacturing function.
    
    
• BuyDesign Integrator – a single point of control for integration with enterprise engineering, manufacturing, and business systems provided by TDCI Integration Server.

BuyDesign will ultimately include many enhancements building on the capabilities of the current modules:

• Optional stand-alone rules creation. BuyDesign will have a complete development and maintenance capability for rules to be used only by BuyDesign . For rules that will also be used by core MAC-PAC XE applications, users will still be able to develop/maintain rules using Expert Configurator and import them into BuyDesign for development of extensions and for use in on-line configuration (as is now done with C3).
• Open integration. BuyDesign will be capable of integrating with just about any manufacturing system (including, of course, MAC-PAC XE ).
• Functional enhancements throughout. BuyDesign will become the platform for many enhancements planned over the coming months and years.

BuyDesign will be a natural evolution of the MAC-PAC XE C3, Customer Center , ABQ, and FlexAutomation applications. Although pricing and packaging may be somewhat different, MAC-PAC XE users with those products will be able to move to equivalent BuyDesign functionality as it becomes available.

Watch for more information on BuyDesign over the coming weeks as TDCI begins to communicate this exciting new solution to the broader market as well as the MAC-PAC XE community. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more, just ask your TDCI account representative or contact Mike Wilson at mwilson@tdci.com or 614-781-2325 x134.