Conversion of iPPE Product Structures to Material BOMs 

Purpose

During the early phase of product development (early engineering), you model complex and variant-rich product structures in the product designer (iPPE workbench). In this first phase of the life cycle of a product, a wide range of data comes into existence.

If you want to use this product data in an advanced stage of development, for operative processes (such as work scheduling), you convert it to BOM data. The product designer provides a functional package for the conversion process. In this process, you extract selected data from the complex iPPE model and convert this data to a material BOM (application component LO-MD-BOM).

In work scheduling, for example, information on the product structure with the materials and quantities is required. The original concepts from the early phase of the engineering process are irrelevant, and are therefore ignored in the conversion process.

You can integrate the material BOMs that are created as a result of the conversion process in further logistical processes, for example adding to product data or planning production processes in the engineering workbench.

Implementation Considerations

You run the conversion after the product structures have been maintained in the iPPE workbench, when the product data is to be processed for further production processes in the engineering workbench.

For more information, see the SAP Library:

·        PLM – Integrated Product and Process Engineering

·        PP– Engineering Workbench

Features

The conversion includes two functional packages:

·        Extraction of the iPPE data to be converted

In this first step, the complex, multi-variant iPPE product structure is decomposed and evaluated according to defined criteria.
Only the data determined in this step is read in the subsequent conversion process. 

·        Conversion Process

In this second step, the iPPE data that has been extracted from the iPPE product structure for conversion is converted to BOM objects.

By implementing Business Add-In PDCNV (BAdI for the Product Designer) you can optimize editing processes and adapt them to suit your company-specific conditions. For example, you can define options for conversion. The documentation for this BAdI is in note 521995 Product Designer: Documentation BAdI PDCNV.

Restrictions

Not all data in the iPPE model is copied to the material BOM.

The following objects are ignored for the product designer:

·        Alternative
The iPPE product structure is evaluated for a specific alternative. The material BOM that is created from is always a simple material BOM with alternative 01.

·        View

·        Color node

·        Production version

·        Access and classification of an iPPE node

·        Variant assemblies

·        Multiple use of materials at different nodes (BOM header)
If multiple decompositions for a material are determined in a product structure (multiple use as header material), there is an error message.
However, conversion is possible if the material is used multiple times as a component in the product structure.

·        Historical relationships between iPPE nodes