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  Editing Bills of Material

Procedure

Creating a Bill of Material

When you create a bill of material, you have to select one material as the header material. The header material cannot already be assigned to another BOM. You can only select materials that are in the same collaboration or that are in a work area of the same competitive scenario. Once you have assigned the header material to the BOM, you can no longer change it. The name of the BOM is at first generated from the name of the header material, but can be changed later on, as required. When you create a bill of material, you first have to enter the values of the BOM attributes.

Changing a Bill of Material

In addition to the attributes, you can create and change BOM items and document links.

Document Links

You can link an unlimited number of cFolders documents to a bill of material. You can use a search help to select these documents. In a collaboration in the collaborative scenario , documents can only be linked to a bill of material if the document is in the same collaboration or in standards . In a collaboration in the competitive scenario , documents can only be linked to a bill of material if the document is in the same work area or in standards .

Note Note

If a link between a document and a bill of material is deleted, only the link is deleted. The document still exists.

End of the note.

A material can be used as the header material for one bill of material only. It can also be used as a component in an unlimited number of BOM items. Here too, assignments can only be made within the same collaboration or in the work area of the same competitive scenario.

Copying a Bill of Material

You have two options when copying bills of material:

  1. Copy the bill of material to the same collaboration or the same work area:

    The bill of material is copied to the target folder and all document links in the copy refer to the same documents as in the original. The components in the items of the BOM copy are also the same as in the original.

    Since the copied BOM cannot use the same header material as the original, the system first checks whether a material exists that is a copy of the header material in the original BOM and is not used as the header material of any other BOM.

    If such a copy exists, this material becomes the header material of the BOM copy.

    If no copy exists, the system copies the header material of the original bill of material. This copy is then used as the header material of the BOM copy.

  2. Copy the bill of material to a different work area:

    The bill of material is copied to the target folder. Each document link (that does not link to standards ) is checked to determine whether a copy of the linked document exists in the new work area.

    If a copy does exist, the link in the BOM copy refers to the copy of the linked document in the new work area.

    If not, the linked document is copied to the work area with the BOM, and the BOM is linked to this copy.

    Components in the BOM items are handled in the same way. The system also checks whether a copy of the header material exists and is not already being used as the header material of any other BOM.

    If such a material exists, this material becomes the header material of the BOM copy.

    If not, the system copies the header material of the original bill of material. This copy is then used as the header material of the BOM copy.

Once you have copied a bill of material, check whether the status of the new linked documents, components, and header material is up-to-date. Since several copies can exist, check whether the copy you require is linked to the bill of material.

Bill of Material Version

When you store the material versions of an old BOM version, the system locks the active versions of the components, that is the objects assigned to the BOM as items, and the active versions of the header material against further changes when it creates a new BOM version. The changes made to the relevant materials are then saved in a new material version.

You can also select versions of a BOM and compare them. For more information, see Single-Level Structure Comparison of BOM Versions .

Bill of Material Items

cFolders supports the item categories variable-size item , stock item , and text item . Depending on the item category, the system displays different attributes. Variable-size items and stock items must have a component that can be selected using the search help. The component in an item can be changed at any time. Text items do not have a component. Each item can have linked documents. The prerequisites for documents that are linked to a BOM also apply to these links. You can navigate to BOM item details from the BOM version overview screen.

From the BOM version overview screen, you can choose the Start of the navigation path Compare Next navigation step Display Details End of the navigation path to compare individual BOM items and see at a glance what has changed from the previous version to the current version. For information about how the results of the comparison are displayed, see Single-Level Structure Comparison of BOM Versions .