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A
agalpin-24-Participant
4-Participant
January 13, 2015
Solved

How are BOMs controlled with Regards to AutoTables

  • January 13, 2015
  • 5 replies
  • 2116 views

I have a question regarding auto part numbering / balloons.....

If i have an assembly with say 5 parts

  1. Body
  2. Screw
  3. Seal
  4. Top
  5. Grease

I create an auto table as above

Each Part is also given a balloon that is associated with the table

This is fine.......

Now.....

I then realise I can redesign the body to seal itself so part 3 is not needed

I remove part 3 from the assembly

On regeneration the table changes

  1. Body
  2. Screw
  3. Top
  4. Grease

And the balloon numbers changes accordingly

If there a way to not do this, ie

  1. Body
  2. Screw
  4. Top
  5. Grease

Ie, so parts 4 & 5 remain the same.....

We are wanting to use SAP to control BOMS and the way our datateam want to do it involves parts keeping the same sequential number in SAP which corresponds on the drawing.... We dont want to be changing the order in SAP everytime the drawing updates.

I’ve had a brief look through the config but can’t see anything???

Also, if i added a part that had a sequential part number that was before these parts it would be added as part 1 and the body would become part 2, screw 3 etc.....

Thanks


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Best answer by StephenW

In the drawing, go to TABLE - REPEAT REGION. The Menu manager will pop up. Select FIX INDEX - pick the table - Fix each line to be a specific balloon number. You only have to do this once on the drawing, they stay fixed after that. Any item removed, that balloon number will just be skipped. Any item added will be at the end of the table.

5 replies

L
lsrutkowski1-Visitor
1-Visitor
January 13, 2015

Adam,

The way that Creo handles the autonumbering for BOMs is by numbering in order of placement in the assembly tree. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, there is no easy way to accomplish what you are requesting (although there might be a way with some repeat region manipulation, but I'll let someone experienced in that sort of work take a stab at that method).

The most straightforward way to keep a BOM number with no entry would be to include a 0-volume part (part with no geometry) in place of the removed item. As long as the 0-vol part was in the same position on the assembly tree as the removed item, it would receive the same number in the table. The only down side to this is if you are using the filename in the BOM table (by default, PTC's BOM tables use the file name without the extension for the PART NUMBER field), but this issue could easily be resolved with a little bit of repeat region magic (use a custom parameter for the part number that is generated by the repeat region using a forumly that is equal to the &ASM.MBR.NAME parameter unless that value is the filename for your blank part, in which case you set it equal to a blank space).

IF asm_mbr_name == <insert filename of blank part in quotes, without file extension>

dispname=" "

ELSE

dispname=asm_mbr_name

ENDIF

Then set the repeat region value for Part Number to &rpt.rel.dispname

dispname can be changed to whatever parameter name you would want to use.

A
agalpin-24-ParticipantAuthor
4-Participant
January 13, 2015

maybe a rethink is in order then.

The point of this exercise (coming away from BOMs on Drawings and on SAP) was to minimise work and double-handling mistakes, but it seems alot to do each time. I did think about just manual ballooning using a straight forward symbol with variable text.....

StephenW
StephenW23-Emerald IIIAnswer
23-Emerald III
January 13, 2015

In the drawing, go to TABLE - REPEAT REGION. The Menu manager will pop up. Select FIX INDEX - pick the table - Fix each line to be a specific balloon number. You only have to do this once on the drawing, they stay fixed after that. Any item removed, that balloon number will just be skipped. Any item added will be at the end of the table.

A
agalpin-24-ParticipantAuthor
4-Participant
January 14, 2015

Thanks for the Reply Stephen.

I think this is the closest we are going to get without lots of individual work per drawing.

The only issue I can see with this is the index part is removed completely, so the order can go 1,2,3,4,6,8,10, etc

but as I mentioned before, the whole point of this excise was to eliminate work in the first place. The fix index feature seems to be exactly what we require from a BOM structure perspective.

Thanks again

D
dcox-21-Visitor
1-Visitor
January 14, 2015

This raises a good point, which I've never thought about until I read this. Currently we do something not dissimilar, we define the BOM numbering in Windchill and that is pushed to our ERP system, but the either the drawing or Windchill must be manually manipulated to match the other.

Despite using Owner associations, which drive the BOM structure in Windchill (components and quantities), BOM numbering still requires a step of manual intervention, it's a shame there's not a mechanism to handle this more automagically.

With regards to your problem, I don't have a lot to offer - Fix Index would get you fairly close as Stephen says, but and new parts would be added to the bottom of the table, rather than being inserted above and pushing the existing ones down. I guess it depends whether its SAP or the drawing that is considered the Master BOM, ie whether you change the drawing to match SAP, or vice versa.

Alternatively you could export the SAP BOM as a csv file (I don't use SAP, but I assume you can do that, one way or another) then import it as a table onto your drawing. You would lose any sort of connection to the content of your assembly and BOM balloons would have to be created manually, but if SAP is the master BOM, maybe it's an option.

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