Creating Subtypes of Workspaces / Item Classification

[Anonymous]

Hello, everyone

I would like to create sub-types or subclass of items, e.g. split them into "Assemblies", various kinds of parts like "Capacitors" or "Inductors", etc. I already have the "Category" field in my items, but how can I add sub-type-specific attributes?

Also, can I do the same for things like Change Orders? Or, is the right thing here just to go and create a new workspace for each change order type? 

I could do it easily enough for change orders, but for items there must be an easier way.

This may be a really obvious question, but I just couldn't find it in the help or get it to work on my own. Maybe someone can just point me to the write documentation or tutorial. Thanks in advance

Edward

[jpiggee]

Edward,

Depending on how comfortable you are with the PLM product and scripting you could create subclasses for items in different ways. You could do something as simple as just adding another field to the item workspace and giving it additional properties such as “wood, metal, or plastic”. Or you could combine this and create a new item numbers based on this property such as an item number prefix (wood = 01, metal = 02, and plastic = 03), however this would require some scripting knowledge to do. Finally if you wanted you could create a workspace per subtype and have them separated out. Each choice is equally viable which each one having a variable degree of difficulty attached to it. How you wish to go about this is what makes PLM so flexible. I personally would go with the one that’s comfortable with your knowledge and understanding of working with PLM.

As for change orders this has options too, You could added options to the change orders within the workflow based on what you want the outcome to be, or create multiple workspaces based on aspects of how you want to change order to be. How to handle the change order will be more defined based on how you decided to address the subclass issue.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I think with the change orders, I can make that work. With the items, it's still a bit tough. I'm just starting with 360, but if scripting's the way to go, then definitely I need to learn it. I'm thinking of some previous places I worked at and how they did this. Often, we had a sort of class/type hierarchy for the parts. Maybe you could make an "Item "workspace in 360. But can you make types and sub-types with inherited attributes? I mocked up a trivial example (Hierarchy Example.jpg) It's sounding like I'll need to make a workspace for each leaf node in my item hierarchy, is that right? In that case, I'd better keep the taxonomy pretty simple. The item number scripts would definitely be useful for some intelligent numbering schemes, but I'm thinking we might have a bit too much to pack into the part number. I'm a bit stumped on this one. Thanks for the inputs. Edward

[scottmoyse]

If I were you I would just create a single workspace and have an Item Detail named Category. That can either be set on creation or be an imported value. Basically just copy the setup which is in the 'Vanilla' Items & BOMs workspace that came with your PLM 360 instance.

Then you could put conditional requirements on certain fields based on the category they belong to. Those fields could be organised into sections which match up with the categories/types you have, that way its easier to see whats required as you go. Some of those conditional requirements could be tested on creation or upon a state change or even upon the state change of a related component/Item.

Your setup and which way would be best is largely dependant on if you are going to supply the data for PLM 360 pre-populated from a CAD package via an import or if you are going to create it within PLM 360 itself.

I have often thought it's best to create seperate workspaces for different  component categories/types but have found it can make the setup more complicated than is needed. As a result I've tried to stay within a Workspace whenever I can. Its things like scripting requirements and your desire to have a 'clean' Item details tab or different tab setups which will drive you towards having individual workspaces.

Just some food for thought. I hope it helps.

[Anonymous]

These are very useful suggestions. I think on the mechanical side, I'll be okay, but I'd like the PLM system to master all items. Ideally, I'd like to set up a sync to the OrCAD CIS database on the electrical side; I can explore scripting later. Right now, I'm trying to build the component model in 360. Looks like it can't just be 1 to 1. I'll have to learn some scripting before proceeding now, I guess. Thanks iPhone$B$+$iAw?.(B

[scottmoyse]

There are some great resources online for you to learn scripting in no time:

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/PLM_360/enu/Community/Tutorials/Scripting_basics

If you want PLM 360 to master the Item record, then forget about the Vault Pro PLM 360 sync tool for now, since it treats Vault Pro as the Master for Items.