Akpil. 8 salespeople. 150 enquiries a week. 60% are the same questions.

Agricultural machinery configurator: how to design it to take the load off sales reps

This guide is for agricultural machinery manufacturers and distributors considering a configurator on their website. It answers where to start the project, which elements determine whether the tool will actually reduce the number of phone calls, and how to measure the impact after launch.

An agricultural machinery configurator isn't a prettier version of the catalog. A catalog is for browsing; a configurator is for making a decision: the customer should be able to check on their own whether the machine fits their tractor, what its specs are, how much it costs, and when it will be available. If the tool doesn't answer these questions, the sales rep's phone will ring anyway.

Start with a list of questions customers ask

The best input isn’t the catalog but the sales reps’ notes. In the Akpil implementation described above, 60% of inquiries were the same questions, repeated by customers dozens of times a week:

• What machine size is right for my field and crop?
• Does the machine fit my tractor, considering power and the hitch system?
• What are the technical specifications: depth, working width, number of sections?
• How much does it cost?
• When is it available?

Each of these questions should be answered in the configurator. It's a simple test of project scope: if any of them is left unanswered, that's exactly the one that will generate phone calls after launch.

A compatibility rules engine instead of knowledge in a sales rep's head

With agricultural machinery, compatibility is the hardest part. The same harrow may fit one tractor and be too heavy for another. That’s why the heart of the configurator is an if-then rules engine, for example: if the tractor’s power is below 60 HP and the working width exceeds 3 m, show a warning.

The key is who maintains these rules. At Akpil, the manufacturer's team edits them in the panel on its own, without involving a developer. With a catalog spanning 19 categories and more than 70 models, that's a prerequisite for keeping the configurator from going stale after the first change to the product range.

3D machinery configurator: where visualization helps and where a photo is enough

3D visualization grabs attention, but it doesn't have to cover the entire catalog. At Akpil, 3D visualization was prepared for selected models, not for all of the more than 70. This approach lets you start with the models where customers compare variants most often and expand the library gradually.

A 3D machinery configurator also works well beyond the website. At agricultural trade shows, customers can configure a machine on a tablet at the booth, while the sales rep focuses on conversations with customers who have already chosen a variant. So when designing the interface, it’s worth accounting for a large touchscreen from the start, not just desktop and mobile.

Product configurator for a machinery manufacturer: product range, dealers, and ERP

The configurator ends with a quote, not just a summary of the selected options. In the implementation described, the generator creates a PDF document with a number, validity date, specifications, price, and the sales rep's details. The customer downloads it immediately, and the sales rep receives a ready configuration.

A manufacturer selling through a dealer network needs a few additional elements:

• automatic routing of the lead to the distributor in the customer’s region,
• a discount system with codes assigned to a dealer or campaign,
• ERP integration, so that price and availability come from a single source,
• multiple languages, if exports are planned.

Without ERP integration, the configurator quickly starts showing outdated stock levels and prices, and then customers call again to confirm them.

Off-the-shelf SaaS tool or a configurator built around your catalog

There are good SaaS configurators on the market, such as Tacton, ThreeKit, or Configure One. They work best for catalogs with standardized logic, where a product is described by a few dimensions, a color, and a material. A solution built for a specific catalog is usually chosen when:

• the rules require industry-specific compatibility logic, such as matching a machine to a tractor,
• ownership of code and data matters more than a per-user subscription,
• ERP integration requires a custom data flow.

Akpil met all three conditions. With a dealer network, paying a subscription for each partner would have been more expensive in the long run than a custom solution. On the other hand, if the catalog is small and pricing is simple, a spreadsheet may be perfectly sufficient.

How to measure whether the configurator works

It’s worth defining metrics before launch so you have a baseline. At Akpil, data from six months after launch, verified by the client’s team, looked like this:

The last metric is the most telling. When most customers arrive with a finished configuration, the conversation with the sales rep is about financing, timing, and delivery, not whether the machine is a fit. A configurator doesn't replace the salesperson; it qualifies the customer before they reach them.

The most common mistakes when designing an agricultural machinery configurator

Most problems with configurators don't stem from technology, but from assumptions made at the start. A few of them come up especially often:

• Designing from the catalog side instead of from the customer’s questions. The result is a nice-looking presentation that doesn’t say whether the machine fits the tractor.
• Compatibility rules hard-coded. Every change to the product range then requires a developer, and the configurator quickly stops reflecting reality.
• No price or availability. The customer finishes the configuration and still has to call to find out the two most important pieces of information.
• Leaving out dealers. If a lead isn't automatically routed to the regional partner, some inquiries get lost between headquarters and the sales network.

A well-designed agricultural machinery configurator reverses the order: first answers to customer questions and rules, then the look.

How long implementation takes and what it depends on

At Akpil, the project took 8 weeks: audit and workshop, data model with catalog and rules, interface with 3D visualization, rules engine with admin panel, quoting with ERP integration, and finally launch and dealer training. The timeline depends mainly on the quality of product data and the number of compatibility rules, so it's worth spending the first week organizing the catalog and customer questions.

We describe the scope of such projects on the page online configurators and presentations, and you’ll find working examples in the JSON Crew showroom, and we write about generating quotes from the configurator in digital quoting and calculations.