Don’t know all the abbrevations yet? Don’t worry we have covered some of them below:
Production and fulfillment models
ATO – Assembled To Order
A process where standard parts are put together into a finished product after the customer orders.
CTO – Configure To Order
A process where a product is built from a set of mix-and-match choices selected by the customer.
ETO – Engineered To Order
A process where a product is custom-designed and built from scratch to meet a specific customer request.
MTO – Made To Order
A process where a product is manufactured from start to finish only after a customer places an order.
MTS – Made To Stock
A process where products are manufactured in advance based on demand forecasts and stored in inventory.
Mass Customization
On-demand manufacturing of configured and customized products with a high level of automation that enables pricing comparable to traditional mass-manufactured products.
CAD, Files & manufacturing formats
CAD – Computer Aided Design
Software that helps with the design of a product in 2D and 3D.
BIM – Building Information Modeling
Process to capture digital representations (3D, info, meta) of buildings and their components (3D, meta, etc). Commonly uses the open file format .ifc for data exchange.
BOM – Bill of Materials
Data defining a specific product. See eBOM and mBOM for variations.
eBOM – Engineering Bill of Materials
Defines a product from it’s design intent and key components.
mBOM – Manufacturing Bill of Materials
Defines how a product should be actually built on the factory floor. Includes eBOM together with exact details needed for the assembly line (eg. glue, tools, labeling, manufacturing order).
STEP – Standard for the Exchange of Product model
File format .stp or .step for 3D CAD information according to ISO 10303.
PDM – Product Data Management
A system to that handles technical engineering and design data.
PLM – Product Lifecycle Management
A system that handles a products entire life cycle from conceptual design to supply chain and recycling.
Business and sales systems
API – Application Programming Interface
Interface available between software and cloud services for data exchange and interaction.
CPQ – Configure Price Quote
Software for configuring, pricing and quoting -often used in sales of complex customizable products.
CMS – Content Management System
The system providing a website or intraweb.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
Software for running commercial operations, often used by sales teams.
ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning
Software that helps to manage the main business processes in a company.
PIM – Product Information Management
A system that handles commercial and public data. Often used in marketing and CMS.
RFQ – Request For Quote
Enable clients to send in a request for a quote. Commonly done with a web form or e-mail.
SaaS – Software as a Service
Software services commonly run in the cloud that is billed regularly
VPS – Virtual Private Server
Common hosting alternative for web services
Configuration, design and experience
Customer self service app
An application that enables the customer to do work that otherwise a sales person would have done for the customer.
Design Automation
Automated software for automating processes around CAD. Most commonly used when designing a product but can also be used with product configuration. Read more about design and CAD Automation in DynaMaker.
Knowledge-based configuration
Synonym for Product Configuration.
GenAI – Generateive Artificiall Intelligence.
Synonym for engineering headache.
Space Planner
Software where the user moves around objects freely in a space. Can contain product configuration. Usually supports import of CAD files (dxf, 3D-BIM/STEP) and can exports CAD drawings with dimensions.
Visual Configuration
Product Configuration with visual feedback of the final product with every choice made during the configuration. Can also refer to configuration by interacting with a 2D / 3D visualization directly. Read more about visualization in product configuration.
UI – User Interface
What the user will see when they use a customer self service solution.
UX – User eXperience
The user’s perception of a service.
FAQ
Not quite. CPQ covers configuring, pricing, and quoting as one suite. A product configurator like DynaMaker focuses specifically on the “configure” part — validating what’s buildable and generating production files — and typically connects to whatever you already use for pricing and quoting.
Configure To Order: a customer picks from a defined set of valid options rather than requesting a fully custom design.
Configurators like DynaMaker are usually built once by an engineer using their existing CAD files for the visualization and CAD document automation, then used by customers or sales reps who never touch CAD directly.
