Weight weight please tell me

[Anonymous]

This is a two-part question regarding rolled up weights in BOMs.  The general setup is that I have a field called WEIGHT on the Item Details tab.

1. How can I roll up the WEIGHT values of an item's components without including the parent's own WEIGHT field in the roll up?  The only options I see are to either include the parent's WEIGHT in the roll up or to use the parent's WEIGHT as the rolled up number.

2. How can I automatically show or write the rolled up value from a BOM on the Item Details page?

If neither of these are possible how are other folks managing weight values for components and assemblies?

Thanks.

Joe Hendrickson

[dvirh · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

The only two options available at the moment for Assemblies are to use the Assembly value as an Override or to add it to the sum. If you have a use case that requires to ignore the value stored on the Assembly, that would be a great Idea Station suggestion!

It is also not possible to show the rolled up value on the item details page. The reason for that is that the rolled up value is dependent on the Configuration of the BOM (as-of date and Revision Bias) and can change based on changes in the children without a change in the parent. If we were to store the value on the Item Details page, we would likely show the wrong value at least some of the time. Therefore it is more accurate to run the calculation only when needed and based on the configuration you care about at the moment.

[Anonymous]

Okay, adding this to the Ideastation as well, and here's why (in the form of a question):

All of our items, components and assemblies, are stored in a single workspace.  In order to capture the weight of the components there is a field called WEIGHT on the Item Details tab.  If a WEIGHT is entered for assembly items (for right or wrong) then it will mess up the roll up of the component WEIGHTs on the BOM Items tab.  What are some recommended ways to prevent a WEIGHT value be entered for assembly items?

To answer my own question, I'm thinking I need a field that indicates whether an item is an assembly or a component.  Then I need a hidden COMPONENT_WEIGHT field that gets the value of the WEIGHT field via scripting only if the item is marked as a component.

Any other ideas?

[dvirh]

Joe,

I think you are on the right track. If there is truly a difference in behavior between a Part and an Assembly, than classifying them and using the classification in a script to determine the Weight values sounds like a good solution. This may or may not apply to you, but I think there may also be a difference in behavior between Physical Assemblies and Virtual/Phantom Assemblies. Whereas Physical Assemblies may actually have a valid Weight number, e.g. from a CAD system or some other source, a Virtual Assembly (AKA Phantom Assembly) may not. You can use the same method to distinguish between types of assemblies and associated the expected behavior to each.