Configuration - Papers from the Workshop at ECAI 2002

Non edited proceedingsInternational audienceConfiguration tasks can be defined as designing a product individual using a setof pre-defined component types while taking into account a set of well-definedrestrictions on how the component types can be combined. Product configurationproblems are present in many domains: manufactured product (machine,computer, furniture…), networks (telecommunication, transportation systems…),service (banking, travel…) and software (ERP, CRM…). Computer programs calledconfigurators, using AI techniques such as constraint satisfaction, itsextensions, description logic, logic programs, rule-based systems and differentspecialized problem solving methods, can support it.The ECAI 2002 workshop on configuration is the fifth in a series of workshopsstarted at the AAAI 1996 Fall Symposium and continued at the AAAI 1999Orlando USA, ECAI 2000 Berlin Germany and IJCAI 2001 Seattle USA. Thegoals of these workshops are to promote high-quality research in configurationand strengthen the interaction between industry and academia. The industrialinterest in the field is indicated by the increasing number of configuratorvendors. The importance of configuration has expanded as more companies useconfigurators to efficiently customize their products for individual customers.Combined with e-business solutions they have a high market impact and generatenew business opportunities in many industries for new products and new ways tointeract with customers.However, efficient development and maintenance of configurators requiresophisticated software development techniques. AI methods, more than ever,are central to designing powerful configuration tools and to extending thefunctionality of configurators. The working notes of this workshop gathercontributions dealing with various topics closely related with configurationproblem modeling and solving. The 25 papers demonstrate both the wide rangeof applicable AI techniques and the diversity of the problems and issues thatneed to be studied and solved to construct and adopt effective configurators