For many years I worked for a manufacturer of pressure and temperature switches, a small company with a very big product selection. In our product catalog there were roughly three dozen distinct product families with hundreds of standard products, each available with thousands of optional configurations. The average order quantity per line was two pieces. In short, we were what is commonly referred to today as a “low volume, high mix” manufacturer. The potential product selection was astronomical, perhaps in the hundreds of millions.

I experienced this complexity first in 1971 while working in the marketing department of that company. My job in marketing was to present these innumerable specifications and styles in a manner that made ordering products easy for our customers. I had no idea, however, how many parts were needed to produce even a single product, let alone the hundreds of millions of permutations.

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