For a configurable product, the customer’s choices are more than a sales record. Dimensions, finishes, structural options, site conditions and payment terms describe the thing that must be made. If those choices are captured in separate tools, someone has to reconstruct the order before production can begin.
An effective product system connects each choice to a rule. A change in span selects an appropriate profile. A change in material updates the bill of materials and price. A selected finish carries through to the order record. The customer can explore options, while the factory receives a configuration that has already been checked against the constraints the manufacturer defined.
Why the traditional order is incomplete
A conventional ecommerce order is designed to identify an existing item: product, quantity, address and payment. That is enough when the object has already been fully defined. It is not enough when the sale determines what the factory needs to make.
In configurable manufacturing, the order may need to preserve geometry, validated dimensions, finishes, optional systems, site inputs and the relationships between them. A free-text note or attached drawing can carry some of that information, but it cannot reliably drive production.
Price and production share the same logic
Real-time pricing is most useful when it is not a separate approximation. The same configuration that selects material quantities and fabrication operations should inform the commercial result.
When a span changes, the system may select a different profile and increase material usage. When a motor is added, the bill of materials, labor and price all change. When a finish is selected, its rate and availability belong to the same decision. The quote becomes explainable because it is connected to the product definition.
Checkout freezes a valid state
Checkout is the moment a live configuration becomes an order. The system should preserve the exact validated state the customer approved, along with the agreed payment terms. Within the scope the manufacturer has set up, the essentials should not need to be reconstructed from screenshots, emails or sales notes; requests outside that scope go to the team for review.
From there, the handoff becomes a transfer of agreed information attached to one configuration. Depending on the product and the setup scope, that might include a specification, a bill of materials, drawings, manufacturing files and the commercial terms. Which outputs a product needs, and who approves them, is decided with the manufacturer’s production owner.
A sample handoff checklist
This is an illustrative checklist, not a standard or a certification. Adapt it with the person who owns production for the product family.
- Configuration: the selected dimensions, options and finishes, and the product and version they were chosen from.
- Rules: confirmation that the selection stayed within the agreed limits, or a clear flag that it needs review.
- Price: the price shown to the customer and what it includes or excludes, such as delivery, installation or taxes.
- Commercial terms: the payment terms the customer accepted.
- Production information: the outputs agreed for this product, for example a specification, bill of materials or drawings.
- Exceptions: site conditions or requests the rules do not cover, with an owner for the decision.
- Approval: who signs off before fabrication starts.
Walk a few representative orders through the list, including an edge case. A gap in the list is a setup question, not something to resolve on the factory floor.
A shorter path from customer to factory
This does not remove engineering judgment from manufacturing, and project-specific engineering approval stays with the manufacturer. It makes repeatable knowledge reusable and directs expert attention toward exceptions that genuinely need it.
The goal is a continuous chain: the manufacturer defines the product system; the customer configures within it; price responds to the selected state; checkout records that state; and production receives the agreed information from the same source.
That is the direction we are building at Molldi, to make custom-manufactured products understandable and orderable by both people and AI agents: one product model connecting design, sale and production, so that an order is already on its way to becoming the thing itself.
For a worked first-product example, read how to sell custom-size pergolas online, or see how the selling workflow works.