Whitepaper

From one-off to series production: increasing efficiency through configuration management

How to make the transition from Engineer-to-Order to Configure-to-Order+ a success, and why configuration management is the decisive competitive advantage in mechanical and plant engineering.How to make the transition from Engineer-to-Order to Configure-to-Order+ a success, and why configuration management is the decisive competitive advantage in mechanical and plant engineering.

01. April 2026
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Contents
From one-off to series production: boosting efficiency through configuration management 21

Tailored products, tight delivery deadlines, rising costs: the pressure on manufacturing companies is growing. Anyone still relying exclusively on the engineer-to-order approach today risks excessive development costs, long lead times and dangerous design errors.

Our new whitepaper shows how strategic configuration management enables the move to a scalable, efficient configure-to-order+ model (CTO+), without giving up the individuality you need.

What to expect

  • ETO vs. CTO+: opportunities, risks and the decisive paradigm shift in production

  • The configuration unit: what it is, how it works and why it is the heart of modern product data management

  • Lifecycle management: how configuration management takes effect from development through production to maintenance and sales

  • From configuration unit to sales unit: how technical product definition and commercial sales strategy work together

  • Practical examples: real successes from machinery and plant engineering, with concrete key figures

  • Implementation roadmap: best practices and success factors for your rollout

Your benefits at a glance

🔧 Cut costs
Less one-off effort per project through standardisation and reuse of configuration units.

Deliver faster
Shorter lead times through reduced concept risk and standardised development processes.

🎯 Secure quality
Systematic change and baseline management secures product quality across the entire lifecycle.

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