A BDD-Based Approach to Interactive Configuration

Abstract

Configuration problems emerged as a research topic in the late 1980s as the result of a manufacturing shift from mass-production to mass-customization. Interactive configuration is an important application area where a user interactively tailors a product (a car, a PC, a device driver,...) to his specific needs using a supporting program called the configurator. Each step in user-configurator interaction includes a user selecting a setting for some specific component or property of his product, and the configurator calculating a list of valid choices for the other unspecified components of the product. The configurator’s calculation of valid choices should satisfy the following requirements:

• Any value that can be extended to a valid product specification should be included in the list of valid choices (i.e., we can specify any valid product specification).

• Valid choices should contain only those values that could be extended to a valid specification (i.e., the user will never be forced to backtrack).

• The configurator’s response time should be fast enough to provide a truly interactive user experience.