Bills of Material
Windchill ESI allows you to publish multilevel Bills of Material (BOMs) that were created or changed within Windchill PDMLink to a distribution target. With Windchill PDMLink, you can configure Windchill ESI to publish specific BOM attributes which can be used to create BOMs. In addition to publishing BOMs and their attributes, Windchill ESI can also be configured to publish created or changed parts simultaneously.
Windchill ESI also allows publication of different usages and alternates of a BOM.
BOMs can include assigned option sets and the associated basic and advanced expressions in the Windchill ESI response depending upon the relevant settings on the distribution target. The saved filter associated with the distribution target is used to arrive at the correct version of the independent expressions for publishing. The assigned expression can also be a driver to publish option and choice information if the relevant options and choices are not already published to the intended distribution target.
When you associate various attributes to a BOM in Windchill PDMLink, Windchill ESI passes these attributes to the EAI software components. The following lists the attributes that are passed:
• Last Changed By
• Date Effectivity
• Serial Number Effectivity
• Lot Number Effectivity
• Usage
• Alternate
• Assembly Part Number
• Attribute specifying whether the assembly is a CAD Phantom or not
• Version
• Previously Published Part Version
• Iteration
• Component Quantity
• Component Quantity Unit
• Component Line Number
• Substitute Part Number
• Substitute Quantity
• Substitute Line Number
• Reference Designator
• Distribution Targets
• Attribute specifying whether the component is a CAD Phantom or not
• Assembly Part ID
• Component ID
• Alternate Item Group
• Component Part Number
• Previously Published Part Version
• Configurable Module
• Collapsible
Once the BOM data has been published to Windchill PDMLink, the EAI software components map the Windchill PDMLink BOM attributes to the BOM attributes of the distribution target. The following table shows the mapping of Windchill PDMLink BOM attributes to SAP BOM attributes.
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Windchill PDMLink BOM Attribute
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SAP BOM Attribute
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Assembly Part Number
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Bills Of Material Item Number Name
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Date Effectivity
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Bills of Material Alternative Date
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Component Part Number
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Component Item Name
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Component Quantity
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Component Quantity
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Component Line Number
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Item Sequence Number
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Substitute Part Number
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Substitute Component Name
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Substitute Quantity
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Component’s Substitute Quantity
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Distribution Target
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Plant
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BOM Usage
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Usage
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BOM Alternate
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Alternate
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Alternate Item Group
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Alternate Item Group
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The Windchill PDMLink assembly part (BOM header) iteration is passed to the EAI software components; however, the attribute is not sent to SAP. If the SAP target system that serves as the publishing target is capable of handling Windchill PDMLink BOM iterations, the EAI software components portion of ESI can be extended to pass the information to SAP; however, SAP does not currently have an attribute that can handle iteration information.
The attribute Distribution Targets in Windchill PDMLink identifies the distribution target in which the BOM should be created or changed. The EAI software components use this information to communicate with the correct distribution target and pass plant information to it.
Some attributes are passed to the distribution target from the EAI software components without transformation; however there are a few attributes that contain values that are either modified or cross referenced by the EAI software components.
Windchill PDMLink passes the Start Effectivity Date attribute in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. Windchill ESI assumes that the time zone is configured across Windchill PDMLink, TIBCO, and SAP. The EAI software components remove the time stamp that accompanies the date prior to passing data to the distribution target.
For serial effectivity, Windchill PDMLink passes the start and end serial numbers of the range that was provided as value for the effectivity as well as the associated effectivity context. The EAI software components map the start and end serial numbers to the serial no. low and serial no. high attributes of the serial number effectivity in SAP, where the serial numbers actually belong to the context assembly. The context assembly is created as well, if it does not already exist in SAP.
For lot effectivity, Windchill PDMLink passes the start and end lot numbers of the range that was provided for effectivity but the EAI software components ignore them. This is because SAP does not support lot number effectivity OOTB and needs to be customized in order for this form of effectivity to be supported.
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The context assembly associated with the serial (or lot) effectivity should be the assembly that holds the component for which serial (or lot) effectivity is specified in Windchill. If this is not true, and if the preference “Validate Effectivity Context” has a value “Yes”, publication will fail. Also, when publishing serial (or lot) effectivity, if the context object is not part of the release, and if the preference “Include Effectivity Context” has a value “No”, publication will fail; however, if this preference has a value “Yes”, the context object will be automatically included in the release.
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By design, Windchill PDMLink does not support changed (updated) Substitutes. The same result is accomplished via Delete and Create actions.
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There are some attributes that are required to create or change BOMs that are not provided by Windchill PDMLink. In these instances, Windchill ESI defaults the values in the EAI software components prior to passing the data to the distribution target. The following table lists the BOM attributes that are defaulted in Windchill ESI and their default values.
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SAP BOM Attribute
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Default Value
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Usage
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1 (Production)
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Alternate
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01
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Windchill ESI includes the capability to send multiple components in a BOM when publishing the BOM from Windchill PDMLink. It can be configured to send line number information for each of the components or use a default value for publishing the line number information to your production system.
When creating components on the BOM, there are a few attributes that are mapped from Windchill PDMLink to SAP. The component attributes that are mapped are listed below:
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Windchill PDMLink BOM Component Attribute
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SAP BOM Component Attribute
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Part Number
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Component
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Quantity
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Component Quantity
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Line Number
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Object Number
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Alternate Item Group
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Alternate Item Group
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There are several attributes that are required within SAP to create or delete BOM components that are not provided by Windchill PDMLink. In this instance, Windchill ESI defaults the values in the EAI software components prior to passing the data to SAP. The following table lists the SAP BOM Component attributes that are defaulted in Windchill ESI and their values.
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SAP BOM Component Attribute
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Default Value
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Object Category
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L (Stock Item)
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Priority
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1 (Primary)
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Strategy
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2 (100% Check)
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Usage Probability
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100
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Windchill ESI also provides users with the capability to send multiple substitutes related to any or all of the components listed on the BOM when publishing the BOM from Windchill PDMLink. The Windchill PDMLink substitutes are mapped to SAP alternates.
When creating substitutes on the BOM, there are several attributes that are mapped from Windchill PDMLink to SAP. The substitute attributes that are mapped are listed below:
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Windchill PDMLink BOM Substitute Attribute
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SAP BOM Alternate Attribute
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Substitute Part Number
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Alternate
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Alternate Quantity
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Component Quantity
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Line Number
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Object Number
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Alternate Item Group
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Alternate Item Group
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There are a few attributes that are required within SAP to create or delete BOM substitutes that are not provided by Windchill ESI. In this instance, Windchill ESI defaults the values in the EAI software components prior to passing the data to SAP. The following table lists the SAP BOM Substitute attributes that are defaulted in Windchill ESI and their defaulted values.
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SAP BOM Substitute Attribute
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Default Value
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Object Category
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L (Stock Item)
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Priority
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2 (Secondary)
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Strategy
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2 (100% Check)
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Usage Probability
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1
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Windchill also supports publishing reference designators related to components on a BOM; however, because the concept of reference designators as it exists in Windchill does not exist in SAP, the EAI software components portion of Windchill ESI does not support publishing reference designators to SAP.
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• Option set information is available in the Windchill ESI response only and the option set will not get included in the SAP out of the box (OOTB). You must customize option set information present in the Windchill ESI response to consume option set information in SAP
When using the object-centric mode of publishing an assembly, with the distribution target attribute Publish Related Documents when Publishing a BOM set to Yes, documents associated to the parts in the assembly are also published.
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Publishing Incremental Information for Equivalent BOMS to a Distribution Target
When publishing an object to a distribution target once again, the information that is sent is based on the information that was previously published. This situation arises if you have an upstream BOM that has been published to a distribution target and there are equivalent downstream BOMs that have not yet been published. If the downstream BOMs are to be subsequently published, you can use the same distribution targets that the upstream BOM used. There is no need to create and associate different distribution targets to the downstream BOMs.
To illustrate this behavior consider the following example:
An assembly for Computer A.20 (Manufacturing) has component parts CPU, mouse, keyboard, monitor, and webcam, that were published to distribution targets DT-1100 and DT-1200.The distribution targets were manufacturing plants in the downstream systems
Subsequently, due to business requirements there is a need to create downstream equivalent BOMs for DT-1100 and DT-1200. Now, you can create a child view of the manufacturing view as follows.
Manufacturing
1100
1200
Then create the downstream equivalent BOMs—Computer A10 (1100) and Computer A30 (1200)from the upstream equivalent manufacturing BOM Computer, A20 (Manufacturing) as shown in the following figure:
Associate distribution target DT-1100 to the BOM Computer, A.10 (1100) and distribution target DT-1200 to the BOM Computer, A.30 (1200) and publish these BOMs to the distribution targets. Incremental changes are calculated by comparing Computer, A.10 (1100) and Computer A.30 (1200) with Computer, A.20 (Manufacturing) and the BOMs are sent as changed BOMs.
The response for the BOM Computer A.10 (1100) published to DT-1100 is calculated as shown in the following table:
Object | Action | Type |
|---|---|---|
Computer A.10 (1100) | Change | Part and Assembly Part |
Monitor A.2 (1100) | Change | Part |
Mouse A.2 (1100) | Change | Part |
Keyboard A.1 (Manufacturing) | None | Part |
CPU B.1 (Manufacturing) | None | Part |
Optical Drive A.1 (1100) | Create | Part |
All components are appropriately marked as Create/Deleted/Change/None | ||
The response for the BOM Computer A.30 (1200) published to DT-1200 is calculated as shown in the following table:
Object | Action | Type |
|---|---|---|
Computer A.30 (1200) | Change | Part and Assembly Part |
Touch Screen Monitor A.1 (1200) | Create | Part |
Mouse A.1 (1200) | Change | Part |
Keyboard A.1 (1200) | Change | Part |
CPU A.1 (1200) | Change | Part |
5M Webcam A.1 (1200) | Create | Part |
All components are appropriately marked as Create/Deleted/Change/None | ||
This behavior is governed by the property com.ptc.windchill.esi.CalculateDeltaUsingLatestPublishedObject which has a default value of TRUE. To prevent downstream BOMs from being published to the same distribution targets as previously published upstream BOMs, change this property to FALSE. For more information refer to the ESI customization guides.
| | Windchill PDMLink allows you to publish iterations of a BOM that are not the latest revisions. For example, if P1 B.10 is published to a distribution target and then you want to publish P1 A.15(earlier version) which has not been published to that target before, you will be able to publish the BOM, provided such publishing is allowed by the downstream publishing system. Such publishing is allowed in SAP. |
You can publish the expressions on the BOM. For more information, see About Publishing Associated Assigned Expressions