About the System Assignment Assistant

If an Item-System scope is defined, the System Assignment Assistant can be used to assign items to operations. It is possible to assign, unassign, and reassign items.

This page discusses:

See Also
Using the System Assignment Assistant
Multi-Assigning and Unassigning Items Using the Assistant

Purpose

The System Assignment Assistant allows you to assign items (such as Provided Parts) to operations.

The assignment assistant box appears when you select System Assignment Assistant .

The assistant comprises the following main areas: System/Operation, 3D Preview, and Products.

Click the image to enlarge it:

The assistant is a tool for defining assignments through a manipulation of products, but the created links are actually between items and operations. It provides a way to visualize items through products.

A item can be realized by a unique operation. An operation can realize one or several items.

Products are implemented by Provided Parts and Loading operations.

Manufacturing Assemblies are not displayed in the assistant.

Required Data

The minimum data required for using the System Assignment Assistant is an item and a system. As well as a scope between the item and the system products defined as "requirement for items."

The scope must be defined on a Manufacturing Assembly on the item side and on a System on the system side.

Once the scope is defined, only the items and systems under the scope are candidates for assignment.

Principles of System Assignment Assistant

The System Assignment Assistant allows you to manage the assignment of items to operations.

Basically, an item can be assigned to:

  • A system (that is, All operations in the Select Operation list). The result is that a new operation is created as child of the selected system. This operation realizes the item.
  • An operation through the Select Operation List. The result is that the operation realizes several items: the selected item and the items it previously realized. There is an additional item assigned to the operation.
  • No operation. In this case, no operation realizes the item.

In most cases, if an operation is the only one that realizes an item, then this operation is removed.

The System Assignment Assistant command does not behave exactly like the Assignments Manager command. Indeed, the System Assignment Assistant can be used to delete operations.

The System Assignment Assistant is a modal dialog box: no selection can be made outside the dialog box. Once it is active, it is no longer possible to click the System Editor or Gantt Chart until the assistant is closed.

Displayed Names

The names listed in the System Assignment Assistant obey simple rules to present all the required information about products.

Products are displayed in the Products column. The name and type of the implementing item are also given.

In some cases, the "item output" is indicated in the Products column (for example, a Provided Part that is output from a Manufacturing Assembly).

Manufacturing Assemblies are not displayed.

There is no display of the operations in the assistant, even if an operation realizes an item. The information associating an operation to an item is retrieved through the Select Operation list in the assistant.

If an item is not associated with a product, then this item does not appear in the assistant, even if an operation realizes the item.

Center Tree and Reframe on Selection for Products

A menu is available for the left and right product lists. The menu consists of two menu items Center Tree and Reframe On Selection.

Clicking Reframe On Selection reframes the selected product in the 3D viewer of the appropriate list.

Center Tree contains the following submenu items:

  • On Selected Part centers the selected part in the tree.
  • On Selected Item centers the selected item in the tree.
  • On Selected Operation centers the selected operation's implemented parts in the tree.

Only Reframe On Selection is available when the selected object in the list is an output of the previous system.

Multi-Assignment of Items in the System Assignment Assistant

The Multi-Assignment capability enables a manufacturing item that is already assigned to a system to be also assigned to another system. You can select an assigned item in the assistant and click the Multi-Assign command. As a result, a new implementing operation is created under the target system, and the existing implementing operation kept.

Assign Behavior

Multi-Assign commands enable Multi-Assignment of provided parts and fasten steps to the right and to the left.

Typical scenarios are:

  • Multi-Assigning Provided parts and Fasten steps in context to a target system.
  • Multi-Assigning an item from a source system to a target system.
  • Multi-Assigning an item assigned from a source system when a specific operation is clicked in the list of a target system.

Note: Only assigned items can be Multi-Assigned to the target system. Otherwise the Multi-Assign commands are disabled.

Unassign Behavior

Consider the following case: the item Provide.031A is assigned to GeneralSystem.1 and later Multi-Assigned to GeneralSystem.2.

To unassign the item from GeneralSystem.1, you must select the Provide.031A from GeneralSystem.1 and push the right to left Multi-Assign command. Though unassignment is successful, Provide.031A is not listed on the target side. This is because there is another assignment of the same item.

To unassign all the assignments, you can go to each individual system and unassign.

To unassign all the assignments in single shot:

  • Select the Assignable Provides/Fastens in the context in the source list and Not Assigned in the destination list.
  • Select all the items to unassign (in this case select the entries of Provide.031A implemented by GeneralSystem.1 and GeneralSystem.2).
  • Click the right to left Multi-Assign command.

Column-Based Filtering

A Filter editor and a Clear command are available in the bottom frame of the assistant to manage column filtering.

You can filter the left products frame with the parts containing a character string (for example, F7X).

Enter the filter string in the Filter editor then click the column header.

The left list then displays only parts with the name containing the characters F7X. The left 3D viewer is updated to display only products satisfying the applied filter.

The same filter string can be applied to any column in the four available lists. Click appropriate column header in the list.

Clicking the Clear command clears the Filter editor and all the filtered lists are reset as if there is no filter applied in the four available lists.

If you manually clear the filter string in the Filter editor, and then click the column of a list, only that filtered list will be reset to its original state.

If a filter is applied on any column, that column title is prefixed with the string (F) to indicate that a filter is applied on that specific column.

Rules for Operation Deletion

When an operation is unassigned by the assistant and the operation does not realize an item, the operation may be deleted.

Items displayed in the assistant are realized by an operation. Such an operation can be unassigned by the assistant.

Link with Resources

If the operation does not have a link with a resource (executing, localization or used resource), the operation is deleted.

However, the operation is not deleted in the following cases:

  • The operation is executed by one unique working resource.
  • The operation is localized on one unique localization resource.
  • The operation uses one or several resources.

Time Constraint

If the operation has time constraints, the operation and the corresponding constraints are deleted.