Recently had a chance to explore the concept of “Configure-to-order”. Exploring it with ERPNext was an exciting task. Understanding and exploring the concept has many thoughts, which may be worth exploring out as a feature to add.
To my understanding feature could be worked out as follow,
Configure-to-order
- Problem statement
- Define item on the go while creating a quotation or sales order.
- Define the BoM while going for manufacture. We can keep this a manual step post order confirmation as of now.
- Pricing of the item. This could be handled manually as of now.
- What could be used or configured,
- Item template with variants.
- Attributes (variants) with more elaborate definition than just Name and probable values.
- Allowing multi-level (recursive) attributes. May be limit to 2 or 3 level as of now.
- What needs to be added,
- Item with template gets selected in Quotation or Sales Order then configurator wizard opens up with attribute definition.
- User has to make choices on the values of attributes step by step.
- Attribute value may range from simple text, number, selection, master lookup etc.
- Level 2 or 3 is allowed then it steps through that deep to capture the required values for attributes.
- Once configurator is over item variant is created in backend with definition captured and item gets added with custom description to Quotation or Sales Order.
This helps capture a basic approach to configure-to-order min. to mid. level complex item.
Please, help with your comments and suggestions.