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ebonneville1-Visitor
1-Visitor
April 5, 2013
Question

How to manage failed uploads of ICP1752 in "Distribute" mode?

  • April 5, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 2435 views

My question is relative to a regular difficulty our data collection team face trying to upload IPC1752 xml files in "ditribute" mode in our system: good point is that more and more suppliers proactively distribute their material declarations, but there are many reasons to get a failed upload in InSight:

 

  • different manufacturer name in IPC file vs in our AML
  • different manufacturer part number in the IPC file vs our part lists
  • different vendor id
  • ...

 

This situation will last for long in my understanding and requires to have "pre-upload" screening & mapping functionalities in WPA.

So far, we are still using InSight. I was wondering how this issue is handled in WPA?

If such screening & mapping functionalities do not yet exist in WPA, I think this is a strong business requirement, at least for Schneider Electric and other companies I have been talking with.

 

So my question is double:

  • for WPA users, how do you manage so far "distribute" IPC1752 files upload in WPA?
  • for PTC,how to make this screening & mapping functionalities become real in WPA?

 

Thanks in advance for your answers

Eric

2 replies

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ptc-41840811-Visitor
1-Visitor
April 8, 2013

Hi Eric,

In our IPC Creator, when the users upload the header file which is sent out, it prepopulates Supplier name, ID, Manufacturer Part Number. They are informed they should never change these, because it will cause a failure. Most people learn the hard way when we send it back to them.

So - the answer for WPA is... yes - it will still fail if any of the items in the Material Declaration header file have been modified. But, we haven't had this be a major problem after users have been using the system, since they shouldn't be modifying the files anyway.

Anahid

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ebonneville1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
April 26, 2013

Hi Anahid,

thanks for your answer. I understand the use of your "IPC creator" mitigates the risk to have any change in IPC header information.

You are lucky that your suppliers do accept to fill in IPC declarations on your own portal. Some others companies like Schneider Electric can not impose our suppliers to do so: we have so many suppliers (~45K) and not enough "power" to convince them.

On top of that, I see a trend of more and more "distribute" IPC management considering that companies (suppliers) will manage and issue one single instance of their IPC declaration.

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ErnstGschwind1-Visitor
1-Visitor
April 16, 2013

Hi Eric,

When WPA sends out requests we send in "request" mode and have all the necessary information filled out already.

Of course I understand you are picking up information in "distribute" mode. It's hard to imagine any automatic solution to map manufacturers and manufacturer part numbers.

How would you see an interaction between user and WPA in this case?

.

E.G. In IMDS we make use of Alternate IDs/Supplier Codes for the supplier to map the (external) IMDS IDs of a supplier to the internal Supplier IDs

Ernst

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ebonneville1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
April 26, 2013

Hi Ernst

Thanks for your answer. As explained in my answer to Anahid, even if we send out IPC forms in Request mode, suppliers have a strong tendancy to answer with Distribute forms. And I can understand why: companies want to issue & manage only one single instance of Material Declaration, and not to adpat it for each of their customers. This would be against the spirit of rationalization & digitization of IPC1752A. Not to mention the extra workload to do so.

So in terms of expectations regardin mapping functionalities in WPA, I expect WPA to be able to manage "alias" table of Supplier names, codes & Part numbers. These table will be filled in progressively by our data collection teams as they captured links between our internal info & supplier's. Hence, while uploading IPC forms, user could select to have an exact match or a similar match. If the exact match fails, the user could try the similar match and accept it or not.

Some system, such as BOMCheck, do already provide such mapping capabilities, including a "fuzzy" match very helpful & powerful (-, /, _, space are retrieved in comparison, hence "Schneider-Electric" and "Schneider Electric" are matched). I would recommend that you take a look on the demo server: http://demo.bomcheck.net

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ErnstGschwind1-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 7, 2013

Hi Eric,

would something like the following address your needs?

For IPC 1752a and maybe EICC/GeSI Conflict Mineral Report uploads:

  1. In the view upload queue, if the upload fails because the supplier is not found, offer an action to select a supplier (or create a new one?)
  2. Use the supplier picker to quickly find the right supplier - the picker actually "suggests" possible hits, much like Google does
  3. Add the unknown supplier as "Supplier synonym" to the selected supplier as an alternate ID (Similar to what we do for IMDS & Supplier Codes)
  4. Check alternate IDs when uploading Material declarations to find the correct supplier

Ernst

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