Engineering items

Engineering items (E-items) are theoretical items that form the basis for real items that you can produce. An E-item usually has several revisions, or versions, that range from a prototype, to the item you manufacture, to an obsolete item. You can define revisions in the Engineering Item Revision (tiedm1100m000) session.

Use the Engineering Item - Item Relationship (tiedm1101m000) session to link an approved revision to a production item. You can copy the E-Item revision to a production item in the Copy Engineering Item to Item (tiedm1201m000) session.

Record E-item components in an EBOM with the Engineering Bill of Material (tiedm1110m000) session. An EBOM has the same structure as a PBOM, but the revisions perform a similar function to the sequence number in a PBOM; that is, validity on different dates.

You can copy an EBOM to a production BOM.

You can copy E-items and EBOMs individually, or you can copy them using mass bill of material changes ( MBCs), which enable you to perform several actions simultaneously.

E-Item Relationships

Relationships between E-items and items form the link between an E-item revision and one or more items.

You can use the link to copy a design change that you have made to an E-item to an actual standard or customized item.

Example

E-item: Mountain bike E-MB01

Revision Description Status
A1 Draft prototype of bike In-design
A2 Prototype bike Approved for Engineering
A3 Parent E-item of bike MB01 Approved for Production
A4 Obsolete bike Canceled

Note that until the revision with the In-design status has been approved, you cannot create another revision.

The actual revision for items is the most recent revision for which all the following conditions are met:

  • A relationship between a production item and an engineering item must be present.
  • For an item linked to an MBC, the effective date of the revision must be before today.
  • Either no MBC is used or a related MBC with status Approved by Production must exist

E-item - Item relationships

You can define the relationship between an E-item and a produciton item in the Engineering Item - Item Relationship (tiedm1101m000) session.

E-item/item relationships are used to:

  • Determine the actual revision of a manufactured or purchased item that is linked to an E-item.
  • Carry through revisions of E-items to the production of manufactured items.

Revision status

LN takes into account the revision status in the following situations:

  • A revision can only be linked to an MBC (in the E-Item by MBC (tiedm3122m000) session) if the status is In-design.
  • You can use the Print Where-Used Revision by MBC (tiedm3470m000) session to print a signal list.
  • When you copy EBOMs with the EBOM Copy Data (tiedm1120m000) session, the revision of the parent E-item in the EBOM must have the Approved by Production status.
  • LN sometimes uses relationships that you have defined in the Engineering Item - Item Relationship (tiedm1101m000) session to determine the values of the following fields in the EBOM Copy Data (tiedm1120m000) session:
    • EBOM Copy Method
    • To Item
    • Item Category
    This is only possible if the revisions for which these relationships exist, have the status Approved by Production.
  • You can only copy single-level EBOMs to PBOMs if the revision of the parent E-item has the status Approved by Production.