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 PLM, Product Structure and Assembly Management

 

Technical Data

Technical Name of Business Function

/PLMU/IPPE_INT_2

Type of Business Function

Enterprise Business Function

Available As Of

Enhancement Package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0

Technical Usage

PLM Core

Application Component

Product Structure and Assembly Management (PLM-WUI-OBJ-PSM)

Directly Dependent Business Function Requiring Activation in Addition

PLM Web User Interface 2 (/PLMU/WEB_UI_2)

PLM IPPE Integration (/PLMU/IPPE_INT)

PLM, Coexistence of iPPE and BOM (PLMU/COEX_IPPE_BOM)

You can use this business function to activate the Web user interface (Web UI) of SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM) for Product Structure and Assembly Management and use the following enhancements:

  • Web UI for Product Structure

  • Web UI for Product Assembly

Integration

Product Structure and Assembly Management is integrated with the Web UI of SAP PLM and the Object Navigator. For more information, see Web User Interface of SAP Product Lifecycle Management (PLM-WUI) and Object Navigator.

To use Product Structure and Assembly Management on the SAP PLM Web UI, you also need the following components:

  • Material Master (see Material Master (LO-MD-MM))

    If you create material master data you can assign it to a product item variant or an assembly header or an assembly item. If you use a phantom assembly, you must disassemble the phantom assembly before assigning a material to the product item variant, or the assembly item and the corresponding assembly header. You must assign the material master data to the product structure and the product assembly before entering any logistic processes.

  • Document Management (see Document Management)

    You can store additional information, such as a product requirement document that you can link to any product structure object. You can also use documents to store CAD files. You can create these documents using Engineering Desktop (E-desktop) and attach them to product structure objects like assembly headers and assembly items.

  • Change Management (see Change Management (LO-ECH))

    You need change numbers to create change states for product structure objects like product variants, product item variants, assembly headers, and assembly items.

  • Classification (see Classification (CA-CL))

  • Variant Configuration (see Variant Configuration (LO-VC))

The following business functions contain additional functions for PLM, Product Structure and Assembly Management:

Prerequisites

You have installed the following components as of the version mentioned:

Type of Component

Component

Is Needed Only for the Following Features

Software Component

EA-IPPE 405, SAP_APPL 605, PLM WUI 701

Portal Content

Business Package for PLM Web User Interface

You make the Customizing settings for this function in Customizing for the following components:

  • Product Structure and Assembly Management (PLM-WUI-OBJ-PSM) under Start of the navigation path Logistics - General Next navigation step Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Next navigation step PLM Web User Interface Next navigation step Objects in PLM Web UI Next navigation step Product Structure and Assembly Management End of the navigation path

  • Guided Structure Synchronization (PLM-WUI-GSS) under Start of the navigation path Logistics - General Next navigation step Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Next navigation step PLM Web User Interface Next navigation step PLM Web Applications Next navigation step Guided Structure Synchronization End of the navigation path

Features

When you activate this business function, the following features are available:

Product Structure

You use product structures to represent product creation, and have access to the following features and benefits:

  • You use product structures to model a multilevel product hierarchy with a greater level of flexibility than the modeling available in BOM maintenance.

  • You can use a redundancy-free description of products or product families with many variants, and an integrated data model for efficient product structure management.

  • You have variant configuration and variant management capabilities, with the option of working with configurable materials.

  • You have the flexibility for continuous modeling right from an early stage to the manufacturing handover.

  • You can work with template structures for quick creation of new or derived product structures and the standardization of product descriptions.

  • You can configure concrete products quickly and efficiently.

  • You have a consistent data basis for all enterprise areas.

  • Product structures provide the optimal method to represent the SAP's engineering structure and they support complex engineering design processes.

Product Assembly

Product assemblies are product structures on which you build CAD integration, and they have the following features and benefits:

  • You can represent nonconfigurable product structures.

  • With product assemblies, you can use product structures and their functions when you do not need configuration, or when you create both configurable and nonconfigurable structures.

  • By separating configurable product structures from nonconfigurable product structures, you can reuse the master data from product assemblies for different products.

  • Product assemblies allow continuous and flexible modeling.

  • They provide the optimal method to represent SAP's engineering structure.

Relationship with Integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE)

Product Structure and Assembly Management (PLM-WUI-OBJ-PSM) is based on iPPE. It includes some features from iPPE, and some new features that align this component with the SAP PLM Web UI. To represent this alignment, and the enhancement of the features from iPPE, Product Structure and Assembly Management uses some revised terms. The following table lists the terms from iPPE with their counterparts on the PLM Web UI:

Integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE)

Product Structure and Assembly Management (PLM-WUI-OBJ-PSM)

iPPE product structure

product structure

access node

product family

access variant

product variant

assembly structure

product assembly

access object

header data

iPPE node

node

structure node

product item

component variant

product item variant

view node

product view
Synchronization of a Product Structure or Assembly with a Manufacturing BOM

You can synchronize a product structure or a product assembly with a manufacturing bill of material (MBOM) with Guided Structure Synchronization (GSS). For more information, see Synchronization of Product Structure and Assembly Management with a Manufacturing BOM). This enables you to reduce the time required to transfer engineering data to production, increase the quality of the information for production, reduce the number of errors when reentering data for production, and support the reconciliation of data from the product structure or product assembly and manufacturing BOM. The synchronization contains the following features:

  • Planning of manufacturing BOMs based on an engineering product structure or product assembly

  • Initial handover of an engineering product structure or product assembly to an MBOM

  • Continuous alignment and monitoring of changes between the engineering product structure or product assembly and the MBOM

  • Full integration in Change Management (LO-ECH)

  • Considering the maturity of change states

  • Full integration in PLM Web UI

  • Decoupling of engineering product structure, product assembly, and MBOM from GSS

  • Memorizing of intended restructuring operations on the proposed MBOM for subsequent synchronizations