In Depth

Design Center

The Experlogix Design Center provides a suite of intuitive tools for building the hierarchies, formulas and rules needed to allow your sales reps and/or customers to configure and price your products and services.  With Experlogix's flexible product definition architecture, a solution for virtually any configuration scenario imaginable can be easily designed and implemented.

Flexible User Interfaces

Experlogix can display product specifications in several formats - from a simple question and answer worksheet through a full guided selling solution – all without programming.  Experlogix user interface options include:

• Color-coded, real-time rules validation feedback
• Drop-down lists
• Radio buttons
• Text input fields
• Min/Max, match and range definitions
• Product pictures
• Definable color schemes, column layouts

Parametric Product Definition Structure

Experlogix models the structure of your products as sets of category objects.  These categories are easily created and arranged, and can have an unlimited number of user-defined parametric properties and option selections assigned to them. Different category sets and option and property defaults can be combined into specific product series and model definitions. Price and parameter behavior of each option can

Powerful Formula Design

Our visual formula designer allows for complex calculations such as dimensional details to be easily entered into Experlogix. Microsoft Excel compatible formula syntax and function libraries make the process of formula design powerful and familiar. In short, if you can write an Excel formula, you can write a formula in Experlogix.

Custom multi-column tables can be defined to look up property values based on option or property changes. For example, a look-up table can retrieve a part’s weight and price based on the material selected. Experlogix supports the following formula types:

• Text
• Math
• Logical
• Inspection
• Financial
• Date/Time
• Aggregate

Advanced Rule Engine

Experlogix features a powerful, “point-and-click” visual rule design environment. Each rule consists of a premise, which can be any arbitrarily complex evaluation of the current specification's parametric properties or sales code selections, and a conclusion, which specifies the type of action the system should take when the premise becomes true. Rule types include Allows, Excludes, Requires, Link, Suggest, Error, Message, Is a (Definition).

Actions can include displaying help messages to the user, suggesting additional options, automatically modifying the specification, highlighting error conditions, etc.  A simple example is a rule that compares the output torque rating of an engine to the input capacity of the transmission, and automatically upgrades the transmission when its capacity is exceeded. The compatibility engine uses Artificial Intelligence techniques to immediately identify and activate all applicable rules at any point in the configuration process. It can easily handle complex product definitions containing thousands of properties, options and rules.

XML Integration  

Customized orders entered through Experlogix can be captured in XML format and routed to back office manufacturing systems.   Manufacturers can leverage Experlogix's advanced rule engine to create Bill of Materials explosions, calculate labor costs, etc.

Development Environment

Experlogix includes a real-time testing and analysis environment to ensure your configuration logic is correct prior to publishing to your reps/customers. Any error is immediately flagged and you can easily trace back through a chain of calculations to isolate the issue.

Product Images

The quote and order process becomes easier when you can see what you’re quoting. Experlogix provides immediate visual references of product series, models and options, enabling faster quoting and reducing returns. You can easily add your product images into Experlogix to make the entire quoting process a lot more fun.