Product Lifecycle Management
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Introduction

This document shall give an overview on Standard Parts Management within SAP in relation to CAD integration. The focus is also the support of Standard Parts Libraries in SAP Engineering Control Center.

As standard parts one can consider components like:

  • Components standardized by any organization like DIN, ISO or ANSI. These are usually nuts, bolts and screws. (Normteile)
  • Components which might be available in catalogs and are purchased. (Katalogteile)
  • Components which are reused very often and they received a status like a company standard part. (Werksnorm)

Standard parts are usually:

  • not changed by anyone but a few standard parts owner
  • cannot be created by anyone but a few standard parts owner
  • do have a high reuse
  • linked with fully maintained Material Masters

The Standard Part in SAP usually consists of:

  • a Document Info Record assigned to a class with specific classification characteristics. For some CAD integrations there might be additional fields maintained like RES4=<CAD-System>:N.
  • a Material Master assigned to the DIR.
  • a CAD original stored in the DIR. The CAD original/file might be a part family (CAD specific like iPart, Family of Parts, Family Table, Configuration). Therefore additional relation between the generic and its variants are needed in SAP.

There are vendors, who provide 3D CAD models as Standard Part Libraries for all common CAD systems. See CADENAS, TraceParts, …

The 3D files can either be stored in SAP or in a separate share in the company’s network. A Document Info Record is still recommended, to link DIR and Material Master, allow searching in SAP and to have a consistent storage with all other content.

Use Cases

Use Case 1: Standard Part does not exist in SAP yet.

  1. An engineer works in CAD and creates an assembly.
  2. He wants to add an component (e.g. screw) and goes to a Standard Part Library (either online, a share in the company)
  3. He selects a screw and downloads the 3D model and adds it into his assembly.
  4. He checks in his assembly into SAP.
  5. He can automatically create a DIR, a BOM and a Material Master
  6. The BOM + Material Master can be used by the purchasing department to order this part.

Use Case 2: the Standard Parts Organization provides a library.

  1. An admin downloads a set of standard components.
  2. The admin imports the components into the companies SAP ERP system, stores the 3D models/files and create the material masters for them.
  3. An engineer works in CAD  and creates an assembly.
  4. The engineer searches in his local SAP for the component and adds it to his assembly.
  5. He checks in his assembly into SAP (with our CAD integration).
  6. He can automatically create a BOM and Material Master
  7. The BOM + Material Master can be used by the purchasing department to order this part.

Creation

General

To create a standard part you have to create a Document Info Record (DIR), attach the CAD file and create a Material Master.

Classification

You also classify the DIR and the Material Master for a faster search and better reuse. There is no out-of-the-box classification hierarchy for Standard Parts, as this is very customer specific. The “Sachmerkmalleiste” and DIN 4000 provide an approach.

Some companies are classifying the Material, some DIRs and other both. We recommend classifying the Material Master, as this is the object which is used throughout the whole enterprise.

Document Type

You can either use a separate Document Type for standard parts or you can have the same Document Type as other components.

Same Document Type (small organization)

  • Pro:
    • Easy promotion from “normal” part to standard part
    • Simpler from an organizational perspective
  • Contra:
    • Authorization might be more difficult (due to SAP PFCG authorizations)

Separate Document Type (companies with own Standard Department)

  • Pro:
    • Simpler authorization via PFCG
    • Clear differentiation, separate Status Network
  • Contra:
    • Component cannot be easily promoted as Standard Part (However, if there is a separate organization for Standards, this anyhow needs to be governed and the creation of a new DIR, Material Master and classification needs to be done by them)

Creating in advance / Import

TBD

Creating “on demand”

TBD

Versioning

In some cases Standard Components are not versioned, in other cases they are. This depends on how customers are using versioning to track changes and distinguish between the different changes.

Versioning has an impact on how variants in CAD might be treated. In CAD systems, where there is only one file which contains all variants, it is recommended to revise always the whole generic DIR and its variant DIRs.

External Standard Part Libraries

There are external providers of Standard Part Libraries like CADENAS. Components can be imported upfront into SAP, so engineers can search and reuse the provided components.

There are also plans to provide a 3rd party Add-On to integrate the CADENAS PARTsolution into SAP Engineering Control Center.