Is anyone using BOM notes?

[dguidry]

I am interested in using notes on BOMs in Windchill so I can use the "Single-level BOM with Notes" and I am running into some difficulty getting it to work well enough for us (to fit our current data structure, practices, and processes).  Is there any company out there is actually using this functionality in their production environment?

[jhasselbring]

Hi Darren, small world!!!

Nope, I dont use BOM notes, sorry

Cheers from J9

[MikeLockwood]

Alcon has been using in production for many years.

Note

- The "note" object is a sub type of EPMDocument and relatively heavy.  We do not use this.

- Instead, we added a string attribute to the Uses link between parent and child WTParts.  This is what we use and it has served the needs. This text can be included as a displayed column in pretty much any Product Structure UI and report.  No experience with pushing to ERP though, which may be a requirement.

[dguidry]

We actually have BOM note usage attribute, but it is used differently than the case where i want to have notes for BOMs.  The issue I am having with the BOM notes attribute for my case is a) the note size (the notes in question can get lengthy, which causes formatting issues), b) a desire to see a list of notes and not a column of mostly empty fields (we want to see something like the single-level BOM with Notes report), and c) we wanted some control over the notes, especially with standard notes and project approved notes, and the usage attribute does not lend to automating that.

How heavy are those notes?  It didn't seem too bad, and I kind of like having the attachments, but i am only investigating.

[HugoHermans]

Hi Darren,

We started to use Notes half a year ago.  We are moving from our home grown ERP system into a new one.  The old system knew several comment fields.  The comment field that was related to Engineering found its alternative in those notes.  It's not used much, so I can't give you much feedback.

Hugo.

[dguidry]

Can I assume the Notes you are using are the "heavy" ones Mike Lockwood mentioned (what I was also wanting to use)?  Is it entirely"out of the box" functionality, or was Windchill customized to make it work? 

My main interest is in getting better visibility of notes being against a component (the uses relationship, not the actual part) in the structure views, especially the uses tab.  There is an available column (Note Status), but it only displays if there are notes against the part, not the component (usage), which is exactly the opposite of what I would want.  Have you guys solved the issue? 

[HugoHermans]

Yes, indeed, the 'heavy' Notes of Mike.  And it is OOTB functionality, only some additional configuration regarding the type of link to the article.  We allow one Note decidated to be synced with ERP, and several that stay in Windchill, so are not synced to ERP.  Since a very small percentage of the articles have Notes, the additional cost for using them is rather marginal.

What I don't like about Notes is that you can't consult them from the article structure.  You have to go to the article itself, and go to an additional tab.

[dguidry]

Thanks, Hugo!  It sounds like you are on the path we are considering.  I have noticed what you don't like about notes and completely agree, but have you been able to even show note status in the structure views?  We can only show when a note is against an object (part in our case), but not against a usage.  It would be nice if the note flag could be configured the other way (show when there is a note against the usage) or both cases.  Also, having that status flag link to a pop-up with the notes would be nice if we couldn't get a note table in the uses or structure views (similar to single-level BOM with notes report).

We are talking with a PTC partner for extending notes for us.  I will post back what we are doing. 

[HugoHermans]

Annoying to BOM Notes is that when you make a copy of an article, you can't leave the Note alone.  The new article is always accompanied by a Note, the old one or a new one as a copy of the old one.  There should be a third option, to leave the Note behind.