Cost of Not Maintaining a Product Configuration System

This article investigates the cost implications of using a not sufficientlymaintained product configuration system (PCS). A case study is conducted to investigate the financial loss due to poor data quality in products sold through a not-maintained PCS. We calculated the financial loss by comparing the quotations generated by the not-maintained PCS and the quotations for the same product when the PCS was updated.The results indicate that the company has been selling the products with a miscalculated 20% lower cost than the actual one. Comparing this financial loss to the cost required to keep the PCS up-to-date, we show that the former is significantly higher than the latter. The research concludes that the realized success and benefitsof utilizing a PCS are related to its maintenance and data quality.