Managing Items
When working with an Item-centric approach in YaPlm, the Item and its structure defines the product and its components. This means that for instance CAD models and drawings are seen as documents which mainly describe geometry, dimensions, and tolerances which can be linked to one or several Items. Information such as material, surface finish, item number, etc. are found on the Item object. This simplifies non-geometric changes, document re-use, and even integration with different types of components (e.g. electrical and mechanical) and systems (e.g. ERP).
In other words, the Item object in YaPlm has all information regarding an Item and an Item can be linked to any type of document (electronic, mechanical, software, etc.) which in themselves can be linked to any type of file: CAD Model, CAD Drawing, Word files, Excel files, PDF files, software files etc. (see Managing Documents for more information about the distinction between documents and files). The available item types in YaPlm depend on how the environment is setup and can be different from case to case, examples include: print items, packaging items, tool items, purchased items, items (general), etc. It is also possible to link other objects to an Item, such as suppliers, manufacturers, customers etc.
Reports such as Bills of Material (BOM) are then also generated using the Item structure (see example in Item Specification).
Documents are linked to Items in at least two different ways, either as a Main Document or as a Supplementary Document.
Main Document
A Main Document is a document which controls the 'Form-Fit-Function' of the item. The most common Main Document is the 3D Model and the Drawing. But a main document can also be some other kind of document, such as a software document or image.
There are rules in YaPlm which control the revision behavior to the Item. The default rules are:
- New revision on the Document -> New revision on the Item(s)
- New revision on a Item -> No operation on the document
Supplementary Document
Other documents that are linked to items are so called Supplementary Documents, e.g. assembly instructions, packing instructions, test reports etc. The links between supplementary documents and items can by default be either:
- Fixed or Filtered: this refers to the documents revision, if the link between a supplementary document and item is Fixed then new document revisions are not linked to the item.
- Revision Specific or Not Revision Specific: this refers to the items revision, if the link between a supplementary document and item is revision specific then new item revisions are not linked to the document.
This gives four default possibilities:
1. Fixed (and not revision specific): New document revisions will not link to the item, but new item revisions will still link to the document
2. Fixed and Revision Specific: New document or item revisions will not link to the item or document counterpart (only the exact item and document revisions are linked)
3. Filtered (and not revision specific): New document revisions will be linked to the same item, and new item revisions will also be linked to the document
4. Filtered and Revision Specific: New document or item revisions will be linked to the item or document counterpart (the latest revisions will always be linked)