About Configuration Management

Configuration management enables you to define several possible configurations for a system. You can then assign effectivity to instances of the system.

All Process Planning commands relative to instance creation, deletion, and modification follow the configuration option selected in the Authoring Context panel. At each creation, deletion, or modification of an instance, effectivity can be assigned on the fly.

Important: To use configuration management, you must install the Configured Engineering app. For more information, see the Configured Engineering User's Guide.

This page discusses:

See Also
Managing Configurations

Typical Configuration Scenario and Procedure

In the same way as for products and items, you can define configurations on systems created in Process Planning. To do so, a model must be attached to a system reference.

In the example below, the model includes a single option that enables two configurations.

The option "Number of doors" can have the value 2 or the value 4, that is, the option "Number of doors" yields two possible configurations: the two-door configuration and the four-door configuration.

System reference with all possible configurations allowed by the attached model


Configuration 1, Number of doors=2

Configuration 2, Number of doors=4

Effectivity

Effectivity defines the validity condition of configured objects, in terms of variability, evolution, and applied changes.

Note: Only instances can be configured. An effectivity is applied on the instance of a PLM reference that holds a variability space. It is built from the data described in the variability space held by the PLM reference that aggregates the instance.

An effectivity comprises a combination of variables and named-effectivities. It is described by means of a logical expression, which can include AND, OR and NOT operators.

Named-Effectivity

A named-effectivity describes predefined validity conditions that can be used as a context to perform changes on configured objects.

A named-effectivity comprises a name and a logical description, a logical expression of variables, and a publication status.

The effectivity of configured objects result from the user changes performed in a named-effectivity context (or volatile expression).

Configuration Mode

The Configuration mode is relative to a session where the user has activated the Define Effectivity option in the Authoring Context panel that appears after selecting View > Authoring Context.

In this mode, all the created/modified/deleted instances hold an effectivity evaluated by the user if the reference that aggregates those instances holds a variability space.

Effectivity Kept After Moving an Operation

When an operation is moved in a system structure, it keeps its effectivity.

There are two cases to consider:

  • If the user is working under session effectivity/define effectivity, then the operation is split. This means that the original operation has its effectivity modified to take into account the session effectivity/define effectivity. Then a new operation instance is created to hold the new effectivity. When this new operation is moved to another location in the system structure, its effectivity is kept.
  • If the user is not working under session effectivity/define effectivity, then the effectivity on the moved operation is identical to the effectivity defined in the operation before the move.