Floor Covering Material Optimization System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Homebuilders face challenges in allowing homebuyers to customize floor plans with architectural options and obtain accurate, real-time pricing for floor coverings, as existing systems struggle to model combinations of standard plans and options, estimate material requirements, and provide immediate pricing.
Innovation Solution
A software system that enables users to configure floor plans with architectural options, select products, and receive real-time pricing by integrating a suite of applications for end-user input, plan merging, product selection, surface area creation, material optimization, and pricing calculations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a software system is developed to enable real-time configuration and pricing, then user customization capability and pricing speed are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system is divided into multiple independent software applications, each handling a specific function: one for user input and configuration, another for plan merging, a third for product selection, a fourth for surface area calculation, and a fifth for pricing. This segmentation allows each component to be developed, maintained, and scaled independently, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining high adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The software system is designed to handle multiple functions within a unified architecture: configuration management, architectural option modeling, material optimization, and real-time pricing. This multi-functionality allows the system to serve diverse user needs without requiring separate systems for each function, balancing versatility with manageable complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If architectural options are integrated into standard plans, then user configuration flexibility is improved, but computational complexity for modeling and pricing increases
Solution Approach 1:
Architectural options are pre-modeled and integrated into standard floor plans before the user configuration process begins. This preliminary preparation allows the system to quickly present pre-validated design alternatives to users without requiring complex real-time calculations during the configuration phase, reducing computational complexity while maintaining flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
A specialized software application acts as an intermediary between standard plans and architectural options, managing the integration and coordination between these elements. This intermediary layer handles the complexity of combining multiple architectural options with base plans, isolating the computational complexity from the user interface and other system components.
3Loss of substance
If material optimization is performed to minimize waste, then material efficiency is improved, but calculation time and processing complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
Material optimization calculations are performed in advance during the software development and configuration phases, establishing optimized material layouts for various floor plan scenarios. This pre-computation allows the system to quickly retrieve and apply pre-optimized material requirements during real-time pricing without performing complex optimization calculations at the point of sale, reducing customer wait time while maintaining material efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms that track actual material usage and waste patterns from installed projects. This feedback is used to continuously refine and improve the optimization algorithms, making them more efficient over time. The feedback loop allows the system to learn from real-world data and improve material optimization without increasing computational complexity in the forward direction.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for optimizing surface coverings having user input representative of a construction project, floor plans representative of the project including optional configurations of the plans, user input for selection from a plurality of the plans and options and creating data points representative of one of the plans, merging the plan and options into a set of data points representative of a final plan set, determining room surface selections from user input, deriving contiguity data from the surface areas representative of the surface selections; and optimizing price of floor materials for selected criteria based on pre-determined rules. The system and method weights traffic flow based on room configurations and determines optimal cuts of materials to minimize seams. Further, the system packs the cut materials optimally to fit standard sheet material such as carpet and vinyl.