Refreshing and Freezing Assembly Orders

Assembly orders are only refreshed if the following criteria are met:

• The Assembly Status in the Product Variants (tiapl3500m000) session, is Planned.
• The To Be Deleted check box in the details of the Product Variants (tiapl3500m000) session is cleared.
• The Planned Offline Date in the Product Variants (tiapl3500m000) session, precedes the refresh time fence of the roll-off line. The refresh time fence is defined for each assembly line, in the details of the Assembly Lines (tiasl1530m000) session.
• The Assembly Line Structure Status of the roll-off assembly line, which is displayed in the Assembly Lines (tiasl1530m000) session, is Actualized.

• The item has the following characteristics:

  • The item type is Generic
  • The item is Serialized
  • The item's item ordering data exists.
  • The item ordering system is FAS

The refresh of an assembly order is actually the refresh of the orders's line station orders (LSOs). The current session can also freeze the LSOs, which means that changes in the order content are no longer automatically processed for these LSOs. Frozen LSOs can only be changed manually in Assembly Control. LSOs are frozen if the following conditions are met:

• The Freeze check box is selected.
• The line segment start date, which is determined when the assembly order is sequenced, falls in the freeze time fence of the line segment of the LSO. The freeze time fence is defined in the Line Segments (tiasl1540m000) session.
• The previous segments, that is, the segments closer to the start of the assembly line, are already frozen.
• The LSO is sequenced. Sequencing is carried out in Assembly Control by assembly order. For each company a separate assembly order exists.

The refresh of assembly orders is a complex process, because many data must be combined. The flow of this process can be outlined as follows:

1. Based on the selection of the product variants in the current session, the product variant structures are generated. Refer to the online help of the Generate Product Variant Structures (tiapl3210m000) session for a detailed explanation of this process. Note that the product variant structure is only generated if the External Product Variant Structure check box is cleared in the details of the Assembly Planning Parameters (tiapl0500m000) session. If this check box is selected, LN uses the current product variant structure.
2. Assembly order information is retrieved from Assembly Control. Line segments that are already frozen, are not considered for the refresh of the assembly order. LSOs that are not sequenced cannot be frozen. For line station orders (LSOs) that are not frozen, the line station variant (LSV) codes must be retrieved.
3. The line structure is browsed, starting from the end of the roll-off line to the start of the supplying assembly line. While browsing the line structure, the assembly parts and operations that are related to an engineering module are determined. This information is used to gather information for the comparison and/or creation of LSVs. This information is taken from the flattened assembly parts and operations, and is evaluated based on effective dates and units. The required materials and operations are stored for each line station.
4. For each line station, a unique LSV code is calculated that identifies the required materials and operations for that line station. Then, LSV codes are compared with the codes of the LSVs that were already used by the LSOs. If, for a particular LSO, the LSV code that is just calculated differs from the code that was already present, an update is required. Something in the assembly parts and/or operations was changed.
5. The assembly orders are refreshed, which means that the LSOs are updated with new or other LSVs. If necessary, new LSVs are created and send to Assembly Control, otherwise, existing LSVs are used.
6. If all LSOs on an assembly line were frozen, the Frozen check box, which appears in the Product Variant - Assembly Lines (tiapl3520m000) session, is selected. If all assembly orders for the product variant are frozen, the Assembly Status in the Product Variants (tiapl3500m000) session is set to Frozen.