Creation of configuration proposals for new vehicles using a data mining application

Ideally, customers configure their cars themselves. For customers who cannot make an individual configuration, pre-configured vehicles are planned and produced. In order to enable optimal sales, these vehicles should be aligned as closely as possible to the wishes of the potential customers. Vision11 supported a car manufacturer in this optimization with the help of a data mining application.

• Recording of requirements of current and potential users (user groups)
• Analysis, simulation and conception (rough concept/specialist concept) of implementation proposals for coordination with specialist department and IT
• Process analysis and feasibility checks with IT/implementation service providers and interface partners
• Cost-benefit assessment of implementation proposals
• Testing and rollout support for implementation proposals

Steps & Highlights

First, an analysis of historical order data is carried out to determine which features are ordered how often by which customer groups and which correlations arise between them. For this purpose, a data mining application is used which – with the help of a factor analysis – summarises the multitude of features into a few overarching factors. Based on this, similar orders are grouped together and statistically significant configurations are determined for the individual customer clusters. This enables the creation of configuration suggestions according to which the ordering of new vehicles is improved in the sales process.

Added value

The configuration suggestions could be demonstrably aligned closer to the customer’s wishes and vehicles could be sold more quickly thanks to suitable pre-configurations. In addition, the information gained from the order data analysis can also be used for further optimization purposes, such as planning special equipment or deriving market trends.