Digital Designer Robot: Assisted Self-Service Design For Customers In Bespoke Manufacturing

在许多行业，在线订单占销售额的很大一部分。批量生产的产品，从牙膏到保险单，或者独特的产品，如房子，都可以在网上同等畅销。共同的因素是，正在购买的产品是预定义的项目或服务，可以放在某种形式的目录中。这同样适用于由用户配置的定制产品(例如汽车)或按需创建的定制产品(例如图片生日卡片)。网上销售有许多优势，如覆盖范围、效率、接近客户等，但只有几个行业尚未享受到这些优势。还不存在的产品不能放在目录中。代替实际的在线销售，组织通过“联系我们”表格或公布电话号码或电子邮件地址来提高产生询问的能力和能力。然后，通过电话或电子邮件进行更传统的面对面销售，伴随着时间延迟和相关成本。我们的主张是，可以使用与人相同的流程和知识来培训软件模型，但可以避免许多限制。通过这种方式，我们使组织能够在销售和售前技术角色中部署“数字助理”(虚拟员工)，帮助客户找到甚至设计适合他们需求的完美解决方案，从而能够获得电子商务的许多好处。在这个项目中，我们提供了一个“数字设计师机器人”，使客户能够创建一个定制的解决方案，为原型和后续制造做好准备。机器人与客户‘对话’以澄清和理解目标，协助设计的创建，并使用文本和图形交互的组合提供专家建议和指导。结果是按需提供专家服务，在适合客户的时间和地点创建定制的产品设计。

Online orders amount to a significant part of sales in many industries. Products created in bulk, from toothpaste to insurance policies, or unique products such as a house, are all equally saleable online. The common factor is that the product being purchased is a pre-defined item or service that can be placed in some form of catalogue. This extends equally to customised products that are either configured (for example cars) or created on demand by the user (for example picture birthday cards). There are many advantages of online sales such as reach, efficiency, proximity to customer to name but a few.Some industries however, have not as yet been able to access these benefits. Products that do not yet exist cannot be put in a catalogue. In lieu of actual online sales, organisations promote capability and competence to generate enquiry through "contact us" forms or publishing phone numbers or e-mail addresses. Progression to a sale then follows a more traditional route face-to-face, over the telephone or email with the accompanying time delay and associated costs.Our proposition is that it is possible to train software models with the same process and knowledge as the person, but avoiding many of the limitations. In this way we enable organisations to deploy 'digital assistants' (virtual employees) in sales and pre-sales technical roles to help customers find and even design the perfect solution for their need, thus enabling access to the many benefits of electronic commerce.In this project we deliver a 'Digital Designer Robot' to enable customers to create a bespoke solution ready for prototype and subsequent manufacture. The robot 'converses' with the customer to clarify and understand objectives, assists with the creation of the design and offers expert advice and guidance using a combination of textual and graphical interaction The result is an on demand, expert service to create bespoke product designs for manufacture at a time and place suitable for the customer.