Great conversation topic Kathy. There are many solutions here. The most recent I've see is somewhat simplistic and doesn't use MPMLink. I don't think it goes as far as what you are looking for (travelers etc) but it might at least provide a starting point. Again I'm not the defacto expert on everything here.
1- Create Documents and CAD Data
2- Build WTParts and overload the BOM with raw materials etc
a. Most BOM attributes only live on the WTParts so as to make them easy to edit
3- Documents and CAD have a simplistic lifecycle (Design, Under Change, Under Review, ENG Released, Obsolete)
4- WTParts have the same lifecycle except there are some extra states (Design, Under Change, Under Review, ENG Released, MBOM Processing, MBOM Complete, Obsolete)
5- A standard Promotion Request or ECR/ECN is used to get objects to ENG Released as a whole or not (documents/CAD first).
a. All appropriate approval entities are involved.
6- At some point when everything has hit the desired level of maturity, an MCN (MCR if needed) can be initiated to begin all MBOM activities (QA etc).
a. This includes transforming the "As Designed BOM" to the "As Manufactured BOM" via using the View mechanism, gather parts etc.
i. This is still somewhat lacking as you can't leverage equivalencies (i.e. Manufacturing Part 162899 is equivalent to Design Assembly 77888)
b. It will give you a fairly structured BOM that can be exported and finally manipulated by Manufacturing to meet their unique requirements for routings etc.
7- Once the MCN and its activities are finished and approved, everything is closed out and the WTParts are set to MBOM Complete.
It's not a perfect solution though and every company seems to handle this differently to an extent. MPMLink is a good tool but there are things about it that are cause for concern:
1- When you create a Manufacturing Part of a Design Part, the Manufacturing Part gets an entirely unique revision.
a. Design Part 1234 is REV D.6
b. Manufacturing Part 1234 is REV A.1
c. This is an issue for anyone looking at a Drawing and see the revisions that just don't match up.
d. If you don't use MPMLink the revision sequence takes on more of a MasterRev_SubRev (D.6_A.1 iirc) which isn't perfect but at least Manufacturing can cross reference the two immediately.
2- The Equivalency info isn't available for consumption unless you launch the MPSE
a. If Manufacturing Part 8888 is equivalent to Design part 1234 you can't see it via the objects details page. Perhaps a valid customization is available to show this link but it isn't OOTB in 10. Maybe in 10.1??
3- MPMLink is a challenging and rather cumbersome tool to use
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Steve Vinyard
Application Engineer
