Procedure for Generating an EBOM from a Product Configuration

This section describes the overall procedure for generating an EBOM from a Product Configuration.

Before you begin: Read the conceptual information provided in The Scope of Variant Configuration Central
Related Topics
Techniques
Generating a Bill of Materials
Working with Product Configurations

  1. Define a product portfolio.

  2. Define configuration features at the product line level. If a configuration feature is to be mandatory, select the feature and click the Toggle Mandatory button in the toolbar.

  3. For the product revision, assign a Part Family to the product revision using the GBOM category. From the GBOM category on the product revision, select Create Part Family from the page Actions menu. Create the new part family with a unique part number sequence (prefix + number). This part family will be used to generate and assign a unique top level part number for each product configuration.

  4. Define the logical EBOM feature structure:

    1. Go to the Features category on the product revision.
    2. Select the Logical Feature tab.
    3. Define the feature structure that mirrors the EBOM structure. This can be a multi-level feature structure composed of features representing assemblies and sub-features representing variant components.

      You can define sub-features that can have inclusion rules (include feature A if configuration feature B was selected).

      If you have parts that are always used independent from any features, you should still create a logical feature to represent these parts. For example, the part User's Guide, should still be defined as a logical feature with a Fixed Part on the GBOM. The concept of a Fixed Part means that the logical feature's GBOM part does not have design variants or a part family (no part inclusion rule) and the part associated to the feature is always selected.

      It is highly recommend that parts are not directly connected to the product.

  5. You can use an existing EBOM multi-level assembly as a starting point by using the Structure Compare:

    1. In the Logical Features tab, click Structure Compare in the toolbar. Select the option to compare Product Revision with EBOM.
    2. Search for an existing EBOM assembly.
    3. Compare using find number.
    4. Once the structure comparison displays the EBOM on the right channel, select the Synchronization button on the top. Synchronize from right to left.

      New logical feature structures are created to mirror the EBOM structure. Once all the new features are created you need to click on each one and give them the appropriate Marketing Name and Marketing text.

  6. For each logical feature, select View GBOM Part Table from the Variant Actions menu. This can be done by either right clicking the feature or selecting the feature and clicking the Variant Actions menu. Then:

    1. Assign a Part Family to each feature and sub-feature. This is used to generate a unique part number based on a product configuration.
    2. Assign Design Variants (configuration features) if you want to formulate part inclusion rules for each logical feature. For example, select part A if color Red is selected.

  7. Assign product configuration features to the product revision using the configuration features defined at the product line level.

  8. Generate the product configuration:

    1. When the product configuration is created, select Preview BOM from the page Actions menu in product configuration Properties page.

      Previewing an EBOM allows you to see side-by-side the logical feature structure and the selected parts.

    2. If a part column shows ????, it means that a part was not selected because either the part is not defined or an inclusion rule did not evaluate to True. Proceed to select the Generate Part icon from the Actions column or select to Create New Part. Search for a part using the action icons.

  9. After all the missing parts have been resolved, you can then click Generate EBOM in the toolbar.