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Product structures

 

 

Product Structures – A Key to Modularization

Product structures depict the components of a product in their hierarchical relationship to one another. This allows complex products with a large number of individual components to be structured and displayed in a clear and organized manner.

Especially for configurable products with high variance, a product structure is helpful in being able to contextually display the large number of individual position variants and to keep the product manageable from a development perspective.

The product structure thus forms the modular building block for your product, from which rule-based variants can be derived.

By using product structures in the PLM system, you gain:

  • A functional breakdown of your product
  • High clarity in collaborative development projects
  • Fast and targeted navigation through product data
  • Structuring of variable components into configurable product modules
  • High and fast reusability of assemblies and components through functional allocation
Product structures – Efficiency-Driver and Quality Assurance for configurable products
The absence of a central product structure can significantly restrict the variety of variants demanded by the market or simply explode the effort required to manage the complexity.

Fixed bills of materials for product variants are only manageable in a very limited variant space and pose significant risks for change control.

Even in non-configurable products, a lack of structure leads to high manual effort in searching for components and often results in performance losses in the PLM system for extensive bills of materials.

A challenge for the successful use of product structures is distinguishing between the levels of available materials with a specific part number and the structuring of the product into modules. This differentiation must also be designed for the interaction between PDM and ERP.

Unser Beitrag

Our contribution

Design of  generic product structures for your product portfolio

Defining the requirements for your system and process architecture

Adaptation and training of development methods

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