Production Phase Lifecycle

These rules are specific to Production Phase parts.

• A change order is required for promoting Production phase parts.
• Before you can promote a parent Production phase part, all child parts must be in a state equal or later than the lifecycle state of the Parent Part.
• You cannot promote a part to the next state if there are development phase child parts.

The Production phase lifecycle includes the states In Work, Frozen, Approved, Released, and Obsolete:

Once created, parts and part revisions are in the In Work state. A part may have its name automatically generated or calculated by the user and given to the system. In either case, the Create Part or Revise Part pages are used to generate the part and connect it to the appropriate change object and drawing print objects.

Once a part is created, you build the part's BOM, a comprehensive definition of materials (and their effectivity dates) required to manufacture the product. Alternatively, you can copy another part's Bill of Materials using the Copy EBOM command. Drawing print objects are created and attached to the part as required during this step in the process.

Once the owner of the part has completed building the Bill of Materials and connecting the appropriate drawing prints, the owner promotes the object to the Frozen state.

To promote the part from In Work, the user must promote the part from the bottom up. That is, the drawing prints must be promoted before their respective parts and the components must be promoted before their respective assemblies.

As the part leaves the In Work state, you must ensure that:

• All component parts attached via the EBOM relationship ("From" direction) must be at or beyond the Frozen state.
• All drawings attached via the Part Specification relationship must be at or beyond the Frozen state.
• The part must be connected to a change action or change order. Only one CA can be connected to the part with "For Release" as the Requested Change value.
• All earlier revisions of this part must be at or beyond the Frozen state.
• All component parts attached via the EBOM relationship ("From" direction) must be the latest Released revision of that part name.
• At least one part specification must be connected. The specification can be a drawing print, CAD model, CAD drawing, or other type added to the Part Specification relationship.
• The related document must have at least one file checked in.
• At least one Design Responsibility connection must exist regardless of the object type related. Design Responsibility can be assigned only to organizations (subsidiaries, business units, or departments) within the host company.

If the production phase part meets all of these requirements, the part can be promoted to the Frozen state.

The Responsible Manufacturing Engineer reviews and approves the part in the Frozen state. The review should include the parts attributes, Bill of Materials, and drawing print.

The Responsible Manufacturing Engineer makes adjustments to attributes like Effectivity and Estimated Cost as required. The permissions in this state do not allow any relationships below this part to be made or broken.

Once the Responsible Manufacturing Engineer is satisfied that the part can be manufactured consistent with its intent, the user promotes it to the Released state. This person must have the Senior Manufacturing Engineer role.

To be promoted past the Frozen state, the part must meet these requirements:

• All component parts attached via the EBOM relationship ("From" direction) must be at or beyond the Released state.
• All drawings attached via the Part Specification relationship must be at or beyond the Released state.
• If there are one or more manufacturer equivalent parts connected, at least one of them must be in the Released state.

Because of the following checks, the user is required to promote the parts from the bottom up. If these requirements are met, the part can be promoted to the Approved state.

After the part enters the Approved state, all proposed changes connected to the part's CA are checked whether they are also in the Approved state.

If all proposed changes are in the Approved state, the CA is automatically promoted to the Review state. If any proposed change connected to the CA is in a state before Approved, the CA is not promoted to the Review state.

A trigger is available (but is inactive, by default) to block proposed changes from being promoted to the Released state unless the connected CA is already in the Released state.

If a part has equivalent parts connected to it, one or more of the equivalent parts must be in the Released state before this part can be promoted to Released.

Once the part is in the Released state, no connections or disconnections of any relationships below a part are allowed. Connections above the part will, however, be permitted to change objects that want to revise the part and to other parts that use this part in their bill of materials.

As a part enters the Released state, the following actions fire:

• If the EBOM connection is from the highest release of a part, the following steps are performed:
• An identical EBOM History relationship is created between the parts. This connection has all the same attribute values as the EBOM connection.
• The End Effectivity Date is set on the EBOM History connection is set to (the date the component part is Released - 1 second).
• The EBOM connection is floated to the newly Released component part.
• The Start Effectivity Date on the EBOM connection is set to the date the component part is Released.
• The End Effectivity Date on the EBOM connection is kept blank (no end effectivity date).

This provides tracking to be able to determine which parts were connected to an assembly when it was Released.

• If the EBOM connection is from an in-process part, the action disconnects all EBOM relationships between the previous revision of this Part and its next assemblies ("To" direction) then connects identical EBOM relationships between those same next assemblies and this Part. This process has the same effect as if float were defined on the "To" end of the EBOM relationship.
• If the EBOM connection is from a previous release of a part (previous to the latest Released revision), then the EBOM connection is left as is. There is no need for an EBOM History connection.
• The next action disconnects the Part Specification relationship between the previous revision of this part and its drawing print then connects an identical Part Specification relationship between that same drawing print and this part. For mass EBOM changes, an option can be set to disable this action.
• The last action automatically changes the owner of the part to be a special user in the system, "Corporate." This locks down the part so no additional changes can be made and it removes the part from the engineer's desk.

Design Responsibility relationships can be disconnected at any point in the lifecycle. If you want other users in the company to be able to see the part after it is Released, disconnect any Design Responsibility relationships, since only the owner and users who are members of the organization that has design responsibility for the part have read/show access to the part.

At some point in time, it may be determined that a part must be Obsolete. When this occurs, a person with the Role, Product Obsolescence Manager, can promote the Part to Obsolete.

In this state, the part cannot be used in any new bill of materials. This is accomplished by changing permissions such that no connects above the part are allowed. Once a part is in the Obsolete state, only the Product Obsolescence Manager can demote the object back to the Release state.

• A Production phase part cannot be promoted to Obsolete if it is a child of a Production phase parent unless the parent is in Obsolete state.
• A part can be promoted to Obsolete even if its child parts are not in the Obsolete State.