Managing item components

Successful product development in today's world relies on meeting every customer requirement. Customers are constantly changing requirements for business agility in order to take advantage of all business opportunities. All this is required in record time and the faster you go the harder it is to change tracks and deliver the product on time.

If we have multi-disciplinary teams: electrical, mechanical, mechatronic, and software engineers and each of them develops the same product, but separately forms its structure by their own definitions (depending on the discipline to which it belongs) mistakes are inevitable and therefore so are price increases and delays.

You, as a Product Engineer, are trying to maintain an up-to-date product structure and related specifications, but maintaining this information is a lengthy, error-prone process, so just as you finish updating you have new data or changes. Additionally, on top of all that, there are efforts to use the optimal number of parts and no duplicate parts to reduce the price so you have to compare the items and their production characteristics to make a decision.

The component management application on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform delivers exactly what you need. It allows for a centralized product and article structure for any engineering discipline so that everyone works on the same up-to-date source of information. Options for comparison, make or buy analysis, graphing, and item management allow you to make the most of your existing intellectual property, not duplicate items, and maintain product pricing.

Key characteristics:

• 2D and 3D display of articles
• Powerful search for different data sources 
• A reduced possibility of error by selecting only approved and validated components
• Possibility to create item components:
• • Tabular and Graphical hierarchical display of items
  • Manually (creating new and/or adding existing items)
  • By copying and modifying existing components
  • By synchronizing with the 3DCAD structure
  • By import from MS Excel-a

• Easily associate new items with existing ones from the archive
• Request, execute, and manage changes
• Ability to link an item to any relevant type of specification from the database (word, pdf, AutoCAD, Inventor ...)
• Decision support through hierarchical 3D rendering of an item component (very useful in mechanical engineering)
• Basis for integration with production management system
• Comparison of constituents and reports by various criteria and hierarchical levels
• Make / Buy analysis