Title: Constraint-based personalised configuring of product and service bundles

Authors: Markus Zanker, Markus Aschinger, Markus Jessenitschnig

Addresses: Institut fur Angewandte Informatik, Alpen-Adria-Universitat Klagenfurt, Universitatsstrasse 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria. ' Computing Laboratory, Oxford University, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QD, UK. ' Institut fur Angewandte Informatik, Alpen-Adria-Universitat Klagenfurt, Universitatsstrasse 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract: The configuring of product bundles such as tourism packages, financial services or compatible skin care products is a synthesis task that requires the support of a knowledgeable information system. We propose a personalised constraint-based configuration approach that is capable of solving such tasks in e-commerce environments. Here, a knowledge-based configurator is hybridised with collaborative methods from the domain of recommender systems in order to exploit user preferences to guide the problem solving process through large product spaces. The system implementation is based on a service-oriented architecture and the Choco open source constraint solver. It supports a model-driven approach for knowledge base design, acquisition and maintenance. An evaluation of the system suggests that it can solve realistic problem instances within an acceptable period of time.

Keywords: personalised configuration; recommender systems; e-tourism; electronic tourism; constraint-based recommendation; mass customisation; service bundles; product bundles; tourism packages; personalisation; user preferences; service-oriented architecture; SOA; Choco; open source constraint solvers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMASSC.2010.037653

International Journal of Mass Customisation, 2010 Vol.3 No.4, pp.407 - 425

Published online: 20 Dec 2010 *

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