Experienced Experts and Consultants for CET Designer Applications
In 2016, OST became one of Configura’s first implementation partners. OST has leaned into this partnership by supporting the CET experience conference, fielding the largest team in North America, and much more. Our team of CET specialists has helped numerous manufacturers create, update, and maintain their CET Designer extensions.
With OST, you can expect all the cornerstones of our CET extension development services:
- Deep Expertise in CET Strategy, Design, and User Adoption
- Unparalleled Extension Development and Support
- A Culture of Collaboration With Your Team
Get More Value for Your CET Spend
Partner
CET Project Delivery Services at OST
At the definition stage of a CET project, our team works with you to identify and articulate the motivation for a CET extension. Why does it make sense now for your organization, and what does success look like? Whether the desire is to meet the needs of designers, lower the number of reported installation delays and issues, or speed up the cost-price-quote process, our team of consultants is equipped with the methodology to deliver immediate business value for your business.
Strategy
Through dialogue, we learn about your business, share our capabilities, and collaborate to define a minimum viable product (MVP). Our shared goal in defining an MVP is to deliver immediate return on your investment.
Design
Our approach to design is focused on the users of your extension. We work with you to identify pain points that must be eliminated and determine how information should flow throughout key processes.
DevOps
With decades of experience in software development, our team develops, tests, and releases products using the agile framework. We emphasize collaboration with our clients to ensure the best functionality and design is delivered for your CET extensions.
Want to learn more about getting started on a CET extension project with the OST Configuration Services team? Reach out.
Schedule a Demo
Whether you’re considering CET Extensions, want to see real-life examples of a CET analytics dashboard or are curious about how to utilize web-based configurators, our experts are ready to talk when it’s convenient for you. Fill out a short form and we will get back to you within one business day to schedule a demo with our configuration services team.
OST Configura Support Services
OST’s support program for Configura Extensions is a fixed monthly subscription service that enables your team to focus on value-adding tasks while OST prioritizes, manages, and proactively resolves CET user issues.
What Is Covered?
We provide expert technical support for extension or database issues including the ones below.
- Bug fixes
- Changes to functionality
- Enhancements
- Minor version upgrades
- Release testing and support
- Semi-annual upgrade testing and support
- Communicating with Configura to address core issues
Included PM Service Deliverables:
- Dedicated point of contact
- Coordination of backlog grooming
- Hours reporting and management
- Regression test scheduling
- Report generation and review
Are you ready to chat about how OST’s monthly support services could help your team accomplish their goals? Let us know.
Customer Voice
“What started out as an ideation session at Herman Miller quickly evolved into a full-service, custom configuration offering from the OST and Configura team. In today’s digital world, it is partnerships like these which help us succeed — ones in which we not only ideate together, but drive to solutions which are mutually beneficial and create value for all parties.”
Jeff Kurburski
CIO, Herman Miller
What Is Configura Extension Technology (CET) and CET Designer?
Configura Extension Technology is the foundational platform that supports CET Designer software and its ecosystem of extensions. CET extensions allow designers to drag and drop furniture, material handling systems, and other products into digital spaces, and those extensions are built using a proprietary programming language called CM.
What does that all mean? Well, it means something a little different depending on who you talk to.
Office Designers, Interior Designers, and Others Use CET to Design Spaces
CET Designer has revolutionized the way that professional designers approach their work. Before CET, specifying, buying, and installing office furniture was an incredibly slow, error-ridden process. Designers would have books upon books full of product specifications, finishes, fabric, pricing, and myriad other nitty gritty (and necessary) details. The specs for one office chair could take up ten or more pages! They’d use drawings, CAD software, 3D rendering tools like Google SketchUp, complicated order forms, and other tools just to keep a project moving forward.
And if a mistake was made, the entire process had to be repeated. It was back to the drawing board, sometimes literally.
CET Designer puts the entire design, ordering, and installation process into a single platform to save time, eliminate errors, and make everyone’s life easier from creating design concepts for a new space to assembling support braces on extra-large desktop surfaces. With simple drag-and-drop functionality, designers can pull individual items from multiple furniture manufacturers into a virtual space, and CET Designer will automatically update the scene based on manufacturer specifications.
For example, if multiple tabletops are arranged together in a row, the appropriate mid-span supports will be swapped out for end supports. If a piece of furniture is placed without specifying a fabric, finish, or other important feature, CET Designer will alert the designer. And every single change is linked to pricing, so a running design budget is tallied as the space gets built out.
With such an effective all-in-one system for space planning and configuration, the most frustrating thing a designer can encounter in the process is when a furniture manufacturer hasn’t created an extension in the CET Marketplace for their product lines.
Manufacturers Use CET to Drive New Profits
With so many designers shifting over to CET software, demand for CET Marketplace extensions is rising. Manufacturers who are not active in this space are missing out on significant opportunities to drive new profits. Manufacturers can become CET application partners and get their product lines introduced into the CET marketplace to drive shorter sales cycles, greater customer satisfaction, and higher revenue.
Manufacturers using CET extensions have an incredible amount of control and customization available to them:
- You can build models for unique products instead of using generic models in other applications.
- You can define rules and behaviors that dictate how products should be configured and deployed, which saves time and money and significantly reduces the risk of design errors and having to rework layouts and designs.
- You can enable dynamic generation of a bill of material (BOM), pricing, and quotes while simultaneously modeling product usage and placement.
Unfortunately, manufacturers often face numerous challenges as they seek to create and maintain their own extension.
- Manufacturers rarely have an IT team with the specialized skillset to effectively program all their exact specifications into the CET platform using CET’s custom CM code language.
- If manufacturers do manage to get an extension created, whether via their in-house team or outsourcing, it may not be of a quality that distinguishes the designer experience from competitors who have invested in the platform.
- Once they have a high-quality CET extension created, any changes to pricing, specifications, design, and other features of their products need to be implemented and pushed out to the CET marketplace on a regular basis. This puts additional strain on in-house technology teams—and budgets.
How do manufacturers get their products into the marketplace, ensure quality, and maintain their listings in CET designer? They work with a trusted, experienced CET extension developer like OST.
Developers Help Manufacturers Create and Update CET Marketplace Extensions
Many teams underestimate the amount of work involved in a CET extension implementation. It’s more than just a simple reformatting of your online or electronic catalog. And the CET Marketplace is becoming more competitive as more manufacturers are realizing the importance of getting their product catalogs into the platform. That means delivering an exceptional experience for dealers and designers has become the expectation and not a distinguishing factor.
Whether a manufacturer is looking for a complete CET extension implementation from scratch or their internal technology team needs a bit of support or expert advice, developers and consultants like the ones at OST help manufacturers break into the CET ecosystem and gain a competitive edge.
Get Your Products in the Configura Marketplace
OST has been a certified implementation partner with Configura since 2016, and clients have come to us asking for complete CET extension implementations, managed support, and just about everything in-between.
Our long history of strategic work in the manufacturing industry at OST has positioned us for ongoing success within Configura’s environment, and our deep technology expertise has made us uniquely qualified to develop, update, and maintain Configura extensions for manufacturers.
Types of CET Extensions
At OST, we are one of the only implementation partners in the world fully equipped and staffed to build all three types of CET extensions. Below is a basic overview of each type:
Catalog CET Extension
A catalog extension for CET Designer is the most basic type. It essentially just includes CAD drawings of your products with limited options for designers to alter characteristics.
Data-Driven CET Extension
Also known as a hybrid extension, this option has code that controls certain aspects of how products behave in CET Designer, and that code can also pull in other attributes from a database hosted by Configura. This type of extension allows for greater customization and flexibility.
Full Parametric Graphical Configuration (PGC) CET Extension
With a full PGC extension, all the options, rules, and other attributes of your products are included in the code. For highly customizable and custom products, this extension is often the best choice.
What Is the CET Extension Development Process?
We take a conscientious, client-focused approach to all our CET development work. Our process involves the following essential components.
Strategy
At OST, clients partner with us across the spectrum of CET adoption and with very different priorities. At the outset of our relationship, we’re curious. We want to meet you where you are, identify the problems you are trying to solve, establish clear goals and objectives, and then move forward strategically.
Collaboration
At every step of the process, our team works closely with stakeholders and other team members at your business to utilize everyone’s skillsets for maximum efficiency and impact and to create the highest quality product.
Development
We approach each project related to your extension with an agile methodology. At a high level, our process involves design, development, testing, and deployment. Our proven methodology helps our clients bring their CET extension to market faster and with extremely high quality.
Updates and Maintenance
Much like printed and electronic product catalogs, extensions require regular maintenance and updates to keep them functioning properly and to deliver an outstanding experience to end users. Our team does more than just create what you ask for—we also offer ongoing services to resolve support tickets, make updates as your catalog changes, and much more.
Go Beyond CET Extension Development With OST
Experience is the center of today’s digital universe. CET Designer has revolutionized the experience for designers and dealers, and that shift has raised the bar for manufacturers. To stay relevant and compete, manufacturers need to reorient their business practices to meet these new needs and expectations. That requires a deep understanding of customers and alignment across teams to deliver a meaningful experience to those customers.
To accelerate business growth, it’s not enough to offer an electronic catalog or online shopping tool. It’s not enough to have a functional, updated extension in the CET Marketplace. You need to think bigger and connect with your customers in meaningful ways by creating meaningful experiences.
At OST, we are uniquely qualified to help manufacturers overcome the challenges slowing down and blocking their success in the new, experience-driven digital landscape. And that goes beyond coding a top-tier CET extension. It can involve rethinking your business strategy, using data to gain actionable insights about your customers (and how they’re using your products), freeing up your internal team to focus on innovation, and more.
Learn more about our full suite of digital consulting services.
Get Started With OST Today!
At OST, our unique expertise in strategy, design, application development, and technical services helps companies reorient their focus onto consumers, align stakeholders across departments, and leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage. Our team of CET extension experts is ready to help you move forward and start driving new revenue. Call (616) 574-3500 or complete a simple form on this page. We’ll get back to you right away!
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