Getting started with Supplier Management

[avillanueva]

With the lack of course material, I figured those who use SUMA or Supplier Management might know these off the top of their heads. Here we go:

1. Do your BOMS have mixtures of OEM, Mfg and Vendor parts or just all OEM? I know the answer is Yes, you can add non-OEM parts to a BOM. Are there cases for this? All of our parts to date are OEM (regular WTParts). So what would you do with a McMaster CARR part? This is clearly a vendor Part but we have these as WTPart forever. Do you create a Vendor part that is associated with McMaster CARR and link in AVL? Or do you just create the part as a Vendor part with no OEM part and call directly on BOM?

2. Milspec parts. Do you load with specific MFGs that make them or do you create a stand-in MFG for all Milspec parts as a generic approved mfg? Seeing these are often supplied by vendors, you may not know the original source. Here is a case where 1 OEM part tied to 1 MFG part of same number make sense, right?

3. Do you hide MFG and Vendor parts from searches from regular users? Relates to the BOM question. Can you even do this? In my head, it makes sense to show this information in the context of AML/AVL but I can see how it can be confusing to the end user when they search on a part and see multiple parts return with the same number. Which one to pick?

4. Can you have AML/AVL for Make parts? In cases where we have upscreened components, the process is we "make" them but really its a re-identification. Not a big deal but PLM would depart here from SAP since I would like sourcing status to appear on these parts. I think the answer here is no.

If I answer my own questions, I will reply to this discussion.

[avillanueva]

4. Let's knock this one out quickly. Short answer is No which is what I expected. Sourcing status is blank for Make parts. I can work with that. It would likely be more confusing with No AML showing for all Make parts.

[avillanueva]

#3 bites the dust. 

http://support.ptc.com/help/windchill/wnc/r11.1_m020/whc_en/index.html#page/Windchill_Help_Center/SumaSearchConfigure.html

Answer is yes, you can hide them via preferences. Makes sense to make default and override for admins.

[avillanueva]

Partial answer for #1: I believe most customers have just OEM parts on their BOM. This means they are creating duplicate parts of either MFG or Vendor as necessary. This seems to make sense in that CAD users only get to define 1 part type and you cannot change part types once created ( or can you? ). This means the system would already have many of these vendor parts defined as OEM parts already unless you had a internal numbering system for all buy parts.  Kind of forces your hand a bit. 

However, this conflicts with apparent intent where MFG and Vendor parts can be classified in Parts Library. What would be the point unless the intent was to be able to find and select them. It would be assumed that if you created an AML/AVL linkage, that the attributes would be the same.  It would also be utterly confusing to see the same part number return many times with the only different is the icon color.  Ok, let's stick with all OEM parts on BOMs of type WTPart, plain Jane.

Now what about a pure vendor part like McMaster Carr. They like Digikey create their own part numbers. So they may exist in our BOMs already as regular Parts. It would follow I should create a Vendor part of the same number tied to Vendor who owns the part number. But wait, this leaves a gap in AML only creating an AVL.  I can confirm that you do not see a sourcing status value ( shows no AML ) when you only have vendor parts linked. Its true and PTC says by design.  Perhaps I just leave it as is. I will never care what the status is when selecting parts from the library of a vendor part. I cannot see them ever being preferred. And we lack the original MFG source in a form that can be loaded easily.  Moving on to last question.

Hey other SUMA user (and PTC foke), am I wrong anywhere?