Product customization as linked data

Abstract

Ranges of customizable products are huge and complex, because of the number of features and options a customer can choose from, and the many constraints that exist between them. It could hinder the publishing of customizable product data on the web of e-business data, because constraints are not tractable by agents lacking reasoning capabilities. But the configuration process, which helps a customer to make her choice, one step at a time, is a traversal of a graph of partially defined products - that is, Linked Data. Reasoning being hosted on the server, its complexity is hidden from clients. This results in a generic configuration API, in use at Renault. As configurations can be completed to valid commercial offers, the corresponding ontology fits nicely with GoodRelations. Benefits in e-business related use cases are presented: sharing configurations between media, devices and applications, range comparison based on customer's interests, ads, SEO. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.