Engineering Documentation Control and Vantage 8

Yahoo Archive
1
That's an interesting workaround (didn't occur to any of us to
leverage that behavior to cancel out costs in rollups), but one could
argue that a BOM should contain parts, and that documents belong
elsewhere anyways.



One nice thing about using Attachments is that you can access them
from MES. But my folks are relying on what I see as second-class system
functionality in terms of the integrity of the XFileRef IDs.



-bws



--

Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix /
Picometrix

bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~
www.advancedphotonix.com



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Robert Brown
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 1:54 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Vantage] Engineering Documentation Control and Vantage 8



Theoretically, you COULD have maintained your old BOM based paradigm by
using a SALVAGE qty/per = to the BOM detial qty per (using the same p/n
for salvage as used in the BOM dtl for your doc process trigger).

Too late to change?

Rob

--- On Tue, 1/20/09, Brian W. Spolarich <bspolarich@...
<mailto:bspolarich%40advancedphotonix.com> > wrote:

From: Brian W. Spolarich <bspolarich@...
<mailto:bspolarich%40advancedphotonix.com> >
Subject: [Vantage] Engineering Documentation Control and Vantage 8
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 9:07 AM

I'm curious how folks here perceive and use Vantage 8 with respect to
their Engineering documentation control departments. Here's the story.

In our implementation we had a surprise when we discovered that our
BOMs as they then existed wouldn't import into Vantage as Vantage
requires that BOM PartMtl quantities be non-zero. Our Engineering folks
were used to being able to put zero-quantity items on the BOM
(apparently a feature of many ERP systems), such as SOPs or other
related documentation. We tried using very small quantities
(0.00000001) , but this still led to variances and clearly wasn't the
way
to go.

So instead we moved (with some difficulty and head-scratching in
Service Connect) those documents to be Attachments (XFileRef). My Doc
Control folks also established as a particular requirement in Vantage
that the XFileRef ID assigned to a particular file stay unique across
all links to that file, so that one could identify, for example, all
Parts that referenced a particular document, or vice versa, and could
change the revision of that document simply by changing one record. We
do lose capability with respect to our practices in our old MRP system,
as we can no longer track relationships between documents (they would
create BOMs for documents to identify which procedures related to which
master procedures, and so on). To help them leverage this functionality
I built some BAQs and dashboards so they can do searches, etc.

This works reasonably well for the most part. The "Duplicate Part"
function however does not respect the integrity of XFileRef IDs, and we
need to report this as a bug (at least from our perspective) .

But I did want to express to my colleagues that we're clearly pushing
the envelope of the standard functionality that Vantage provides with
respect to document control and engineering change management. My sense
is our requirements are fairly robust given the level of precision to
manufactur and complexity of our products. I know there's a third-party
product that we can integrate and I've indicated to them that we'll need
to think about when we'll need to think about heading in that direction.

I'm assuming there's a variety of needs and practices across the
customer base. How do others relate to this area and how are you
leveraging Vantage?

-bws

--

Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix /
Picometrix

bspolarich@advanced photonix. com
<mailto:bspolarich@advanced photonix. com> ~ 734-864-5618 ~
www.advancedphotoni x.com <http://www.advanced photonix. com>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2
I'm curious how folks here perceive and use Vantage 8 with respect to
their Engineering documentation control departments. Here's the story.



In our implementation we had a surprise when we discovered that our
BOMs as they then existed wouldn't import into Vantage as Vantage
requires that BOM PartMtl quantities be non-zero. Our Engineering folks
were used to being able to put zero-quantity items on the BOM
(apparently a feature of many ERP systems), such as SOPs or other
related documentation. We tried using very small quantities
(0.00000001), but this still led to variances and clearly wasn't the way
to go.



So instead we moved (with some difficulty and head-scratching in
Service Connect) those documents to be Attachments (XFileRef). My Doc
Control folks also established as a particular requirement in Vantage
that the XFileRef ID assigned to a particular file stay unique across
all links to that file, so that one could identify, for example, all
Parts that referenced a particular document, or vice versa, and could
change the revision of that document simply by changing one record. We
do lose capability with respect to our practices in our old MRP system,
as we can no longer track relationships between documents (they would
create BOMs for documents to identify which procedures related to which
master procedures, and so on). To help them leverage this functionality
I built some BAQs and dashboards so they can do searches, etc.



This works reasonably well for the most part. The "Duplicate Part"
function however does not respect the integrity of XFileRef IDs, and we
need to report this as a bug (at least from our perspective).



But I did want to express to my colleagues that we're clearly pushing
the envelope of the standard functionality that Vantage provides with
respect to document control and engineering change management. My sense
is our requirements are fairly robust given the level of precision to
manufactur and complexity of our products. I know there's a third-party
product that we can integrate and I've indicated to them that we'll need
to think about when we'll need to think about heading in that direction.



I'm assuming there's a variety of needs and practices across the
customer base. How do others relate to this area and how are you
leveraging Vantage?



-bws



--

Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix /
Picometrix

bspolarich@...
<mailto:bspolarich@...> ~ 734-864-5618 ~
www.advancedphotonix.com <http://www.advancedphotonix.com>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3
I am having a similar problem, and I'd be interested in hearing how
you got your documents attached with attachments. We just moved to
version 8 earlier this year. We use standard costing, but had not
been using the cost rollup function, and I am now exploring that
option. Unfortunately, I am unable to move forward because our
engineering group had attached material specifications (set up as
part numbers) to all of our purchased parts through BOM's. So
instead of Vantage rolling up the purchased cost, it is looking at
the BOM and rolling up $0. We had similar reasons for doing what we
did (like you)...we could change one spec part and it would
automatically update all of the parts that the spec related to (or
was attached to).

Do you think your fix would work in our case? If so, I'd love to
speak with you further, maybe with one of our IT people.

Thanks!
Kevin Mleziva
Ace Precision Machining
262 252-4003



--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Brian W. Spolarich "
<bspolarich@...> wrote:
>
> I'm curious how folks here perceive and use Vantage 8 with
respect to
> their Engineering documentation control departments. Here's the
story.
>
>
>
> In our implementation we had a surprise when we discovered that
our
> BOMs as they then existed wouldn't import into Vantage as Vantage
> requires that BOM PartMtl quantities be non-zero. Our Engineering
folks
> were used to being able to put zero-quantity items on the BOM
> (apparently a feature of many ERP systems), such as SOPs or other
> related documentation. We tried using very small quantities
> (0.00000001), but this still led to variances and clearly wasn't
the way
> to go.
>
>
>
> So instead we moved (with some difficulty and head-scratching in
> Service Connect) those documents to be Attachments (XFileRef). My
Doc
> Control folks also established as a particular requirement in
Vantage
> that the XFileRef ID assigned to a particular file stay unique
across
> all links to that file, so that one could identify, for example, all
> Parts that referenced a particular document, or vice versa, and
could
> change the revision of that document simply by changing one
record. We
> do lose capability with respect to our practices in our old MRP
system,
> as we can no longer track relationships between documents (they
would
> create BOMs for documents to identify which procedures related to
which
> master procedures, and so on). To help them leverage this
functionality
> I built some BAQs and dashboards so they can do searches, etc.
>
>
>
> This works reasonably well for the most part. The "Duplicate
Part"
> function however does not respect the integrity of XFileRef IDs,
and we
> need to report this as a bug (at least from our perspective).
>
>
>
> But I did want to express to my colleagues that we're clearly
pushing
> the envelope of the standard functionality that Vantage provides
with
> respect to document control and engineering change management. My
sense
> is our requirements are fairly robust given the level of precision
to
> manufactur and complexity of our products. I know there's a third-
party
> product that we can integrate and I've indicated to them that we'll
need
> to think about when we'll need to think about heading in that
direction.
>
>
>
> I'm assuming there's a variety of needs and practices across the
> customer base. How do others relate to this area and how are you
> leveraging Vantage?
>
>
>
> -bws
>
>
>
> --
>
> Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced
Photonix /
> Picometrix
>
> bspolarich@...
> <mailto:bspolarich@...> ~ 734-864-5618 ~
> www.advancedphotonix.com <http://www.advancedphotonix.com>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
4
I wrote a workflow to do this in ServiceConnect.



The CSV input file looks like this:



Company,BOM,Doc,DocType,Description,FileName,XFileRef

PICO,11025-01,AP11025,AP,"AP11025-A Assembly Procedure, Final Pack
Tek-10GLSC.dwg","I:\Document Control\Documents1\AP11025-A Assembly
Procedure, Final Pack Tek-10GLSC.dwg",62

PICO,11027-03,AP11028,AP,"AP11028-E Assembly Procedure, Final Pack
Tek50xr.dwg","I:\Document Control\Documents1\AP11028-E Assembly
Procedure, Final Pack Tek50xr.dwg",63

PICO,11027-04,AP11028,AP,"AP11028-E Assembly Procedure, Final Pack
Tek50xr.dwg","I:\Document Control\Documents1\AP11028-E Assembly
Procedure, Final Pack Tek50xr.dwg",63



You'll notice that the XFileRef ID number is specified and it is
matched with the FileName field. I found it was easier since I was
doing a one-time load to just sort by FileName and assign a unique ID
per FileName. As long as you load in the correct order it works fine.
Basically I just call Part.Update() and populate the PartAttach
structure with the necessary data.



A more robust workflow would more faithfully trace the client BO
operations which creates a new XFileRef only when necessary and doesn't
require you to pre-populate the ID.



I would be happy to supply the workflow and sample input if you'd like
to play with it.



-brian



--

Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix /
Picometrix

bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~
www.advancedphotonix.com



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of mlezivk
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 12:09 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Engineering Documentation Control and Vantage 8



I am having a similar problem, and I'd be interested in hearing how
you got your documents attached with attachments. We just moved to
version 8 earlier this year. We use standard costing, but had not
been using the cost rollup function, and I am now exploring that
option. Unfortunately, I am unable to move forward because our
engineering group had attached material specifications (set up as
part numbers) to all of our purchased parts through BOM's. So
instead of Vantage rolling up the purchased cost, it is looking at
the BOM and rolling up $0. We had similar reasons for doing what we
did (like you)...we could change one spec part and it would
automatically update all of the parts that the spec related to (or
was attached to).

.


<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=20369/grpspId=1705007181/msg
Id=73202/stime=1232471333/nc1=3848643/nc2=3848584/nc3=5541754>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
5
Theoretically, you COULD have maintained your old BOM based paradigm by using a SALVAGE qty/per = to the BOM detial qty per (using the same p/n for salvage as used in the BOM dtl for your doc process trigger).

Too late to change?

Rob

--- On Tue, 1/20/09, Brian W. Spolarich <bspolarich@...> wrote:

From: Brian W. Spolarich <bspolarich@...>
Subject: [Vantage] Engineering Documentation Control and Vantage 8
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 9:07 AM






I'm curious how folks here perceive and use Vantage 8 with respect to
their Engineering documentation control departments. Here's the story.

In our implementation we had a surprise when we discovered that our
BOMs as they then existed wouldn't import into Vantage as Vantage
requires that BOM PartMtl quantities be non-zero. Our Engineering folks
were used to being able to put zero-quantity items on the BOM
(apparently a feature of many ERP systems), such as SOPs or other
related documentation. We tried using very small quantities
(0.00000001) , but this still led to variances and clearly wasn't the way
to go.

So instead we moved (with some difficulty and head-scratching in
Service Connect) those documents to be Attachments (XFileRef). My Doc
Control folks also established as a particular requirement in Vantage
that the XFileRef ID assigned to a particular file stay unique across
all links to that file, so that one could identify, for example, all
Parts that referenced a particular document, or vice versa, and could
change the revision of that document simply by changing one record. We
do lose capability with respect to our practices in our old MRP system,
as we can no longer track relationships between documents (they would
create BOMs for documents to identify which procedures related to which
master procedures, and so on). To help them leverage this functionality
I built some BAQs and dashboards so they can do searches, etc.

This works reasonably well for the most part. The "Duplicate Part"
function however does not respect the integrity of XFileRef IDs, and we
need to report this as a bug (at least from our perspective) .

But I did want to express to my colleagues that we're clearly pushing
the envelope of the standard functionality that Vantage provides with
respect to document control and engineering change management. My sense
is our requirements are fairly robust given the level of precision to
manufactur and complexity of our products. I know there's a third-party
product that we can integrate and I've indicated to them that we'll need
to think about when we'll need to think about heading in that direction.

I'm assuming there's a variety of needs and practices across the
customer base. How do others relate to this area and how are you
leveraging Vantage?

-bws

--

Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix /
Picometrix

bspolarich@advanced photonix. com
<mailto:bspolarich@advanced photonix. com> ~ 734-864-5618 ~
www.advancedphotoni x.com <http://www.advanced photonix. com>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]