Linking Concept and Engineering Structure 

Use

In the early phase of the engineering process, the goals and requirements for a new product or for changes to a product are collected systematically in engineering structures. During this process, the first ideas for solutions emerge, and concepts are maintained for them. To ensure that the engineering processes run openly and effectively all product information in the early phase of product development must be available in its entirety and in a structured form.

For this reason, the product designer lets you link a node from the engineering structure to the idea for a solution (concept). This link is implemented as a relationship between the node from the engineering structure and a concept.

Prerequisites

You have done the following activities in the product designer (iPPE Workbench):

·        You have maintained an engineering structure for requirements and goals.

·        You have maintained a product structure with a component variant. The component variant has a concept group with at least one concept.

·        If you want to create the relationship between a concept and an engineering node by using Drag&Drop, settings are required in Customizing for Integrated Product and Process Engineering.

Choose Production ® Basic Data ® Integrated Product and Process Engineering. This setting is defined under Administration for iPPE Interface ® Settings for Relationships in the iPPE Workbench.

Procedure

Start the product designer in change mode. You then have two options: Choose the following path: Logistics ® Central Functions ® Engineering ® Product and Process Engineering ® Product Designer.

Creating a Relationship using the Context Menu

You can maintain the relationship from processing of either the engineering structure or the product structure. The following overview describes the two procedures.

Structure being processed	Procedure
Engineering Structure	Load the engineering structure to the navigation area. 2.       Expand the engineering structure until you see the engineering node that you want to link to a concept. 3.       In the engineering structure, place the cursor on the engineering node that you want to link to a concept. 4.       From the context menu, choose Create relationship ® Concept. 5.       You see a dialog box where you enter the data for the concept group and the concept. 6.       Confirm your entry. You see an information message, telling you that the relationship will be created the next time you save. 7.       Save the changed structure.
Product structure	... Load the product structure to the navigation area. Expand the product structure until you see the component variant with the assigned concepts. In the product structure, place the cursor on the concept that you want to link to a node in the engineering structure. From the context menu, choose Create relationship ® <engineering node>. You see a dialog box where you enter the key for the <engineering node>. Confirm your entry. You see an information message, telling you that the relationship will be created the next time you save. Save the changed structure.

Creating a Relationship Using Drag&Drop

If you have maintained settings for relationships in the iPPE workbench, you can copy the objects to the other structure by using Drag&Drop. For example, you are copying the concept to the engineering structure.

...

Position the cursor on the object (concept, in this example) that you want to copy.

Hold down the mouse button and drag it to the target object ( engineering node, in this example).

Save the changed structure.

Result

The structure node of an engineering structure is linked to a concept in the product structure. When you refresh the data in the navigation area, the extended structure (for example, engineering structure) is displayed:

·        In the structure, there is a new structure entry for the linked object (for example, concept).

·        In the node of the structure (for example, engineering node of engineering structure), on the  Relationship tab page, there is an entry for the linked object (for example, concept group).