Clash of goals → How to find the sweet spot

1️⃣ Understand the true variety of your customers demands

If you don't understand real customer needs, and their true variety, you either miss the mark (over-engineering).

And thus create unnecessary variant complexity!

Or you keep your own complexity lean, but end up with a product that the customer doesn't really want.

That's why a good ‘navigator’ in product management is very important. He is the one who listens to the customer. Translates the customer's needs into the language of development.

And thus ensures that the customer is understood and the internal complexity is kept under control.

2️⃣ Modularise the product architecture and define interfaces

Modularity is your best friend when managing variants.

Why? Because it lets you separate what must be flexible from what can stay stable. If you design your product in modules—with well-defined interfaces—you can swap out what needs to change, without touching the rest.

That’s how you keep complexity local, not global.

But modularity is not a silver bullet. It requires discipline: clear rules for interfaces, strict versioning, and a willingness to say “no” to special solutions.

The goal: enable variety where it matters, but keep the core as stable as possible. So, invest time in defining modules and their interfaces. The payoff: you can offer the variants your customers want—without drowning in complexity.

3️⃣ Optimise supply chain for flexibility and variant suitability

Your supply chain and manufacturing are right at the heart of variant management.

If your processes can’t handle variants efficiently, even the smartest product architecture will struggle in practice.

The key: design your manufacturing and logistics to be as flexible as your product. Standardise wherever possible (materials, processes, work steps) but build in the ability to switch quickly between variants. Use clear rules for variant handling, so everyone knows what to do when a customer order comes in.

Close coordination between engineering, production, and logistics is essential. Everyone needs to understand the impact of new variants—not just on the product, but on every step from order to delivery.

4️⃣ Enable your organization to deal with variants

Even the best product architecture is useless if your organization isn’t ready for variants.

People need to understand why variety matters -- and where it doesn’t. Training is key. Make sure everyone, from engineering to sales, knows the variant logic.

Define clear processes: how to request a new variant, how to decide if it’s worth it, how to retire old ones.

And don’t forget: variant management is a team sport. Encourage collaboration across functions. Create a culture where complexity is managed, not feared.

The result: fewer mistakes, faster decisions, and a product portfolio that makes sense—for you and your customers.

5️⃣ Empower PLM and IT toolchain to be variant aware

Your PLM and IT systems shouldn’t just document individual variants. They should help you define, manage, and verify the entire variant space. According to the variety of customer demands (see 1️⃣).

Because it’s not (just) about tracking every single configuration, but about making sure the logic and rules behind your variant portfolio are clear, robust, and up to date.

Modern toolchains enable ↗sales automation and ↗design automation for variant-rich products. Ensuring that customer requirements flow seamlessly from the first interaction, like a webshop 3D-configurator, all the way to production.

The backbone of this flexibility is often a ↗150% BOM: a master bill of materials that includes all possible options, from which valid variants are derived automatically. The right tools let you map out the full range of possible combinations, check for conflicts, and ensure only valid variants make it to production.

When your IT landscape is variant-aware, you gain control over complexity, without losing flexibility. In the end, a well-configured toolchain means fewer errors, faster response to customer needs, and the confidence that your variant offering is both feasible and under control.

Setting up such a toolchain is rarely straightforward. I highly recommended to involve variant-aware IT experts in this process. Their experience is crucial for translating variant management requirements into robust system architectures, avoiding common pitfalls, and ensure that your IT landscape can truly support your business goals.