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Introduction
Installation points (or reference designators) are vastly used in many industries including high-tech, to determine the specific location of a given component instance in either the engineering or manufacturing BOM for better tracking of where that particular instance is physically located during assembly, disassembly, reassembly, and other production activities.
In SAP S/4HANA, installation points can be maintained as subitems in BOM and integrated to SAP Digital Manufacturing to improve manufacturing processes like nonconformance logging, for example.
Learn more about Installation points:
In this blog post, I will show you how to configure installation points in SAP S/4HANA BOM and how to use installation points in SAP Digital Manufacturing to improve the overall manufacturing, nonconformance and rework processes.
Configuration
To maintain installation points as BOM subitems in SAP S/4HANA, open Material BOM app and create/edit your BOM. Select the desired component and click on 'Subitems' button as follows:
In the Subitems view, scroll down to 'BOM sub-items' section and fill the subitem details like, Installation Point, Sub-Item Qty, Sub item Text as follows:
Save it!
Keep in mind that a subitem is not a component, it just represents the position where the component is supposed to be installed in Assembly/Sub-assembly.
At this point in time, your BOM including installation points is ready to be used and you can create a Production Order and have it distributed to SAP Digital Manufacturing for execution.
In SAP Digital Manufacturing, if a single BOM component that is transferred from SAP S/4HANA has multiple installation points, then it is transferred as multiple components. For example, if brake levers on a bicycle are installed on the right and left handlebar, then the component has two installation points and the component quantity is also two.
See an example below, where component D1881415_1 shows up twice in BOM, one time for each Installation Point earlier configured in ERP.
In Manage Orders, at BOM tab, component shows twice:
In Manage Bills of Materials, for the order-specific BOM of my sample production order, you can see that the component also shows twice, and that for each entry, the respective installation point information is syncronized:
Now that SAP S/4HANA setup is complete and we have a production order with installation point information in place, let´s configure SAP Digital Manufacturing to support installation point information during nc logging.
In Manage Data Fields, create two new data fields like COMPONENT and REF_DES as follows:
In Manage Data Types, create a Nonconformance (NC) Data Type, including at least the previously created Data Fields as follows:
In Manage Nonconformance Codes, assign the newly created NC Data Type to Nonconformance Data Type field for all the relevant Nonconformance Codes:
In Manage Work Instructions, create a new Work Instruction, add a new Work Instruction Element of type File, upload a 3d model .vds file and fill Metadata Category and Key fields matching your .vds 3d model file metadata (see an example further down below).
Where:
The Category that defines the metadata for the component name key and the installation point key. This category is contained in a local or uploaded VDS file. The Metadata Category is mandatory if you want to enable a BOM component search using metadata. Additionally, make sure to provide values for either the Component Name Key or the Installation Point Key.
The Component Name of the metadata key that identifies a BOM component. This key is defined in the metadata category of a local or uploaded VDS file.
The Installation Point of the metadata key that identifies an installation point of the BOM component. This key is defined in the metadata category of a local or uploaded VDS file.
Using SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Author, maintain your .vds 3d model file metadata to match the metadata mapping previously done in Manage Work Instructions above, see an example below:
In POD Designer, make sure Nonconformance Data Entry and Work Instruction Viewer (in Independent Mode) and placed side-by-side, so they can interact. Example:
All set! Open your POD and give it a try!
First, select and start a SFC and make sure you assemble all the required components.
In Component List POD Plugin, note that Installation Point information is now displayed:
It´s also displayed in Assemble Components POD Plugin, during component assembly itself:
Which supports the overall manufacturing and component assembly process.
If the component is not yet assembled, Nonconformance Logging for that specific component will fail.
Once components are assembled, select a Nonconformance Code with Nonconformance Data Type mapped in Nonconformance Data Entry plugin, so the data fields created earlier for Component and Installation Point Data Fields show up, and select back and forth components and installation points between both Nonconformance Data Entry and Work Instruction Viewer plugins, where selecting a component and installation point in one plugin should reflect and update the other plugin and vice-versa.
Once you select the exact component instance in the 3d model work instruction, component and installation point information should be filled in Nonconformance Data Entry plugin, enhancing the overall NC log process.
Nonconformances logged containing Component and Installation Point information should have this information reflected and displayed across the system, like in NC Data Tree plugin, improving rework and root cause analisys processes:
Demo
Experiencing SAP Digital Manufacturing
You can have a glimpse and experience several aspects of SAP Digital Manufacturing via the Interactive Value Journeys below:
Do you like this post? Please let me know in the comments section what you think. Any feedback is highly appreciated.
Or, if you have any questions, please check SAP Community Q&A Area, or comment down below.
Thanks,
Manoel Costa
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