A Flexible Approach to Product Configuration exploiting Fuzzy Knowledge and SQL

Flexible retrieval of configurable products is one of the most challenging task for e-commerce applications; user requirements are usually imprecise or approximate, and the application has to interpret them in the right way in order to retrieve a set of relevant products. In many cases such products are stored as a database of components and an automatic configuration process has to be provided. In the present paper, we propose an approach to intelligent retrieval and configuration of component-based products, starting from a set of possibly fuzzy user requirements provided at different levels of detail. A conceptual product model is introduced and its use during the configuration process is discussed. The proposed approach exploits fuzzy SQL and a bottom-up (from basic to complex components) configuration process that can be implemented on top of a standard RDBMS. The approach is illustrated through a simple example based on a PC assembly task.