Managing Requirements and Goals (Engineering Structure) 

Purpose

You can collect the goals and requirements for a new product or for changes to a product in engineering structures and integrated them optimally in the processes of early engineering.

·        When a new product is developed, the first product ideas with statements on the features or activities to be fulfilled are collected in a wide range of documents. For these functional requirements and goals, you may maintain texts, tables, graphics, and so on.
In some industry sectors, such as the automobile industry, new models are based on existing models and developed further. In basic engineering, the documents that describe the functional requirements of the old product must be adapted to the current product.

·        In addition to functional requirements, in basic engineering, the constraints are also checked, such as safety and quality requirements. For these requirements and goals, it is useful to have checklists. These lists can be systematically checked and reused in the engineering process. This phase also requires a lot of time invested in processing management goals, such as the management of times or budgets.

·        In the continuing detail engineering, the different requirements are evaluated and completed. Engineers implement the requirements for the product, and continuously develop the product structure. The reuse and adaptation of existing engineering data makes for a considerable reduction of development time and costs.

The product designer helps you to execute these engineering processes quickly and accurately:

·         At the start of product development, you sort the requirements. The individual requirements are structured and described using attributes. Data on the processor and status support the project team, because they are a central tool for finding and sorting requirements.

·         Interdependencies with other requirements and iPPE objects are mapped using relationships.

·         In the continuing development phases, you continuously add to this structure and develop a detailed engineering structure (feature and requirements structure). You create concepts for the realization options for a requirement, and copy feasible data to the product structure. Detail engineering keeps on modeling the product structure until the product is mapped in its entirety and has a production-relevant status. You can use alternatives to map alternative compositions for one product.

Integration

To model the engineering structure, you use Integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE).  Choose the following path: Logistics ® Central Functions ® Engineering ® Product and Process Engineering ® Product Designer.

In Customizing for Product and Process Engineering, special iPPE objects for processing requirements and goals are defined. Choose Production ® Basic Data ® Integrated Product and Process Engineering.

iPPE Node Types for an Engineering Structure

The iPPE objects defined in Customizing for the product designer refer to iPPE application object type GEN (early engineering). Two node types are defined that you can use as templates for your company-specific requirements and goals, such as quality requirements, safety requirements, and management goals.

iPPE Node Type	Use
S_GENHD (Access to engineering node structure)	The general iPPE node type S_GENHD (access to engineering node structure) defines the features of nodes in which you can process requirements or goals at the access level.
S_GEN (Requirement)	The general iPPE node type S_GEN (requirement) defines the features of nodes in which you can process requirements or goals at the structure level. These nodes are used to define requirements or goals.

Relationships Between iPPE Objects

These node types have general relationship types. These relationship types links iPPE objects that are relevant to early engineering. They provide the basis for modeling the engineering structure. The following overview shows which relationships you can map in an engineering structure.

Relationship Type	Use
Access for decomposition of a multilevel structure	For iPPE node type S_GENHD (Access to engineering node structure requirement) there is, for example, a relationship of node type S_GEN with the relationship type Is part of. This lets you assign as many subordinate engineering nodes as you like (for requirements or goals, for example) to an access.
Hierarchical relationship for multilevel structure	For iPPE node type S_GENHD (Access to engineering node structure requirement) there is, for example, a relationship of node type S_GEN with the relationship type Is part of. This lets you structure as many subordinate engineering nodes as you like (for requirements or goals, for example) hierarchically.
Links to iPPE objects	To let you link iPPE node type S_GEN (requirement) to iPPE objects from early engineering, there are relationships with relationship type assignment, for the following node types, for example: S_HD            Access node of a product variant structure (PVS) S_ST            Structure node of a product variant structure (PVS) S_CON        Structure node of a concept group S_VW          View of a product variant structure (PVS) S_VASHD    Assembly group S_VASST    Item node of a variant assembly

Features

Engineering structures are created and maintained in the iPPE Workbench. A range of editing processes lets you integrate the requirements and goals in early engineering.

See:

Creating an Engineering Structure

Linking Concept and Engineering Structure