Usage frequency of product configuration systems relative to integrations and fields of application

Product Configuration Systems (PCS) are automatic solutions that can support and facilitate the sales and engineering processes. PCSs have recently attracted increased attention both from the researchers and practitioners. There are a variety of challenges reported in the literature as consequences of using PCS, which reduces the usage frequency of the system. To address those challenges, IT integrations can be an effective solution to reduce the number of manual tasks and complexity inside PCSs and make PCSs more user-friendly. However, the influence of integrating PCS to different IT systems on usage frequency has not been addressed in the literature. This paper aims to study the relationship of PCS usage frequency in terms of (1) different application area of the PCSs, and (2) integrations to different IT systems. The research method adopted in the paper is survey-based conducted in one company where the unit of analysis is operating PCS.