=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2581/aesp2020paper2
|storemode=property
|title=A Logic to Handle, Define and Process Item Characteristics in ERP
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2581/aesp2020paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2581
|authors=S. Ender Hancioglu
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/se/Hancioglu20
}}
==A Logic to Handle, Define and Process Item Characteristics in ERP==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2581/aesp2020paper2.pdf
A Logic to Handle, Define and Process Item
Characteristics in ERP
S. Ender Hancioglu
schrempp edv GmbH
Lahr, Deutschland
e.hancioglu@schrempp-edv.de
Abstract—The proper definition and structure of item • Are there rules that always result due to certain
classifications, item attributes, and variants are for companies combinations of characteristics?
challengeing. Especially if such structures should be processed in
ERP system. So handling of static and dynamic characteristics in • How is the company language defined?
ERP processes and master data like static or dynamic Bill of
Materials (BOM) and static or dynamic workplans will be • Are there standardized multilingual terms?
considered. In this paper an approach is shown which was • What kind of products do we manufacture, and which
implemented in a ERP system. ones do we want to manufacture, promote or not offer
at all?
Keywords—bill of material, configuration, item attributes,
item characteristics, item hierarchy, static and dynamic attributes, • Knowledge about these products?
static and dynamic master data, work plan, variants
2. METHODOLOGY/ANALYSIS
1. INTRODUCTION
A. Recognition of the characteristics
Characteristic values of items are a very important source
of information in manufacturing companies, especially in The characteristics and their characteristic values must be
variant production, and deliver a complete definition defined clearly. What characteristics are neutrally existent and
including properties, characteristics and attributes of an item. what characteristic values describe the state/character of these
Variant means that the characteristics of the item can take characteristics? These are attributes.
different values per variant. The characteristics with their With a design-approach, handling of variants including
different values exist initially according to the master data of properties, characteristics and attributes combined with ERP-
the Enterprise Resource planning (ERP) and Computer Aided logic will be presented. Moreover, the following concept
Design (CAD) / Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) shows additional integration to an item-configurator including
programs up to the business processes [1, 2, 3]. all dependent ERP-processes and ERP-logic.
Due to a hierarchical definition of attribute lists, such B. Dependencies between characteristics and
characteristics and properties can be registered in a user- characteristic values
friendly manner and faulty insertions can be avoided.
When a business process, a product, an item, or a checklist
The number of characteristics queried and the is analyzed, dependencies, inclusion and exclusion rules,
values/attributes that are available, depend on previous values and logics must be described.
definitions. Additionally, conditions and rules should be
determined for the characteristics, that means, that these These analyzed items and the logic behind them must be
conditions must be fulfilled, so that the certain characteristic designed in a repeatable way. Dependencies between
can be addressed. It should also be possible to link a characteristics and characteristic values must be handled in the
characteristic / characteristic value to a specific schema and to same way. Beside to a configurator, the characteristics can be
define a specific rule. This means that characteristics can be used in many domains within the ERP system. These domains
calculated automatically under a defined condition or can are described in the following chapters.
always have a constant value. Thus, the influence of the user 3. APPROACH
is limited to the necessary minimum – incorrect combinations
of characteristics are not possible. The following main topics are analyzed for the entire
characteristic system are provided with tools and methods:
Employees Often must deal with these characteristics in
day-to-day business without knowing who benefits from this A. Classification of Item- Part Families
knowledge and how far it can be transferred into valuable Within the analysis phase as main approach the DIN
knowledge or rules. The task is to analyze, identify and 4000/1 [4] was chosen.
classify the influences and possibilities of the objectives that
want to be achieved. In this hierarchy, the following conditions must be
considered to remain the whole system functional.
Questions listed below should help to formalize this
knowledge:
• What are the process definitions?
• Are there dependencies and workflows?
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
AESP20: 1st Workshop on Requirement Management in Enterprise Systems Projects @ SE20, Innsbruck, Austria 10
Uniform interface based on common
orpreferred characteristics
→ one-time maintenance of the
characteristics and characteristics
Uniform interface based on common
Item Lists orpreferred characteristics
→ one-time maintenance of the characteristics
and characteristics
Uniform interface based on common
CAD/PLM Interfaces orpreferred characteristics
→ one-time maintenance of the
characteristics and characteristics
Fig. 1. Item families and characteristic assignment
Fig. 3. Areas of influence of partial enormization
Instead of designing a single-step list of all product part
families, this method facilitates the design of item-structures B. Product configurator
hierarchically. This works with generic groups. Afterwards A product has several characteristics with many
these groups are categorized into subgroups and so on. This characteristic values. These characteristics and manifestations
creates a tree structure of the item- families. E.g.: Top level → later exclude or include certain characteristics or their
machine elements, 2nd level: mounting elements → 3rd level: manifestations. In order to be able to map these logics, the
screws, etc. characteristics and their characteristic values must be
presented logically based with decision tables within the ERP
To include any characteristics or characteristic values in
system. This creates a network with many nodes and
the product item family names and subfamilies will not work
dependencies.
proper and leads to the risk, that the whole system will not be
functional anymore. These characteristics must be abstracted The characteristic contents can also be calculated by
from the labels and maintained as separate related tables. For formulas according to certain conditions, that apply to the
example, the 4th plane with hexagonal screw, lens screw, selection and can then be passed into other characteristic
cylinder head screw would be wrong. These are characteristic values.
values of the characteristic 'screw designation' (see Annex,
Fig. 6 and 7). Characteristic types
The following questions should be used to define item- Characteristic-Types, which are also suitable for a
families: configurator, should have the following attributes:
Question form Result Allowed? • Static features: Numeric, alphanumeric, date
What kind of characteristics are • Dynamic features: Freely definable fields with
What? describing the families? Yes logic
→ Product Part families
In the case of numerical and alphanumeric characteristics,
What does the part family consist of?
What? No nothing special can be noted. In contrast, the date
→ BOM
characteristic offers enormous flexibility in the ERP packages.
How is such a part/product structured? No The characteristics of the type Date can be used, as shown in
How?
→ Work Schedule
this example: the release system of the drawings/ BOMs in the
Where? Where are these parts used? No change system can be managed very elegantly.
Fig. 2. Permitted question forms in the determination of the part families The characteristics, whose content can receive a free
select- statement are dynamic features that can obtain
If these questions are not considered of the classification, information from the database at run time.
bills of materials (BOM) and work plans cannot be generated
Example:
automatically an in a generic way by the ERP system.
• The process of terminating a BOM listed item
An item family is allowed once in the entire classification
can generates a demand to a specific datetime. If
to keep the system stable.
no stock is available, an alternative item will
Partial enormization Use/Benefits automatically be terminated.
Masterdata Part/Item Classification • An order operation could be determined and
Find similar parts over characteristic values. automatically resolved using a select statement
Multilingual characteristic values facilitate the with/without capacity.
registration of foreign-language article names
An extension of the possibility is also given by the
Uniform label templates for articles also in
multilingualism. commands such as insert, update or delete or with functions or
procedures.
Identify characteristic values
Variant master BOMs
Uniform interface based on common or
preferred characteristics The variant BOMs are mapped according to the same logic
with the characteristics and their conditions. The conditions
AESP20: 1st Workshop on Requirement Management in Enterprise Systems Projects @ SE20, Innsbruck, Austria 11
can be registered using the decision tables with the possibility Technical order
Resolution into an order BOM and an order route
of the associated formula. This is where the if/then logic processing
prevails. DMS Characteristics of the images and documents
In order to maintain the variant master BOMs more easily, Workflow
Intervention and rules of business processes
the possibility of pseudo-assemblies should not be forgotten. management
These are used to structure BOMs. In addition, the CAD/PLM Interface Feature exchange
maintenance effort of the variant master BOMs is reduced. In
Business Intelligence
the terminated form of the order BOMs, these pseudo- (BI)
Evaluations
assemblies disappear, and their components are automatically
dragged up a BOM level. Another advantage of these logical Fig. 4. Areas of influence of partial enormization
pseudo-assemblies is given in the variant work plans.
The calculation possibilities in the variant master BOMs Modules Use/Benefits
are extensive. An important function is to handle “semi- Masterdata
Codings in the item master data and different
finished” items. For m/m2 semi-finished items, the number, master data
length, or width of the BOM lines can be calculated based on Various codings in item master data or BOM and
the characteristics from the configurator. Functionality also routings such as valves, lubricating parts, spare
allows the field contents to be determined and filled in based parts, loose parts, etc. for the function BOMs
on the characteristics.
The characteristics for acceptance type, test
Attesting
Variant work plans basis, etc.
Such work plans are maintained in the same way as the Supplier
Dynamic and static features
evaluation
variant master BOMs. This is where cost centers and suppliers
are eligible for the subcontracting operations. Characteristics CRM/Service Checklist creation, service logs
such as order quantity, customer, length, width, color, etc. are Test plans Inspection
relevant for the ERP system to decide in a generic way if
pseudo-assemblies will be produced inhouse or subcontracted Dynamic Table
Field Extensions Dynamic and static features
to a supplier. [5]
Variant text standardizations SIK Checklists [5] Calibration reports, test protolls, etc.
In principle, standardized text must be assigned to the
Fig. 5. Use of features without configurator
items and item families in a generic way. The standardized
text should contain placeholders. These text can so be
5. FUTURE WORK
generated dynamically by the characteristic values in business
processes like customer proposals or customer orders. • Recognition of the manifestations via artificial
intelligence (AI).
So standardized text can be automatically dissolved via
decision tables according to the same principles as mentioned • Automatic suggestions for error/problem solving.
before.
• Search access via any characteristic expression in the
4. RESULTS network of the characteristics taking into account the
next possible characteristic combinations.
Following characteristics are available within in the ERP
package across all relevant business processes and master • Interface-Connection to CAD models and feature
data.: exchange between the two systems.
Product
standardization/ Use/Benefits 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
configurator [1] J. Verville, R. Palanisamy, C. Bernadas, A. Halingten, ERP Acquisition
Planning: A Critical Dimension for Making the Right Choice, Long Range
Masterdata Product/article text standardizations Planning 40, 45-63, 2007.
Automatic parts system based on the configurator [2] V. Arnold, H. Dettmering, T. Engel, A. Karcher, Product Lifecycle
Variant based BOMs Management beherrschen, Ein Anwenderhandbuch für den Mittelstand,
Springer, 2., neu bearbeitete Auflage, Berlin Heidelberg, 2011.
Variant work plans
[3] J. Ross, Evaluation of Shipbuilding CAD/CAM/CIM Systems - Phase II
Formula and calculations for other characteristics (Requirements For Future Systems), The national shipbuilding research
and BOMs, operation fields (such as time, etc.) program, NSRP 4-94-1, Maryland, USA, 1997
Project [4] DIN 4000-1 Feature strips
Surcharge pricing on characteristic values
planning/sales [5] Sivas. ERP SIK Software Integrated Configuration Module
Resolution in project or offer BOM
Automatic text generation in quotation/order
Calculation Estimate of a project/offer structure
Request/order via a variant part number with
Purchasing
variable characteristic characteristics
AESP20: 1st Workshop on Requirement Management in Enterprise Systems Projects @ SE20, Innsbruck, Austria 12
7. ANNEX
Fig. 7. Example-Screws
Fig. 6. Example -Heat exchanger
AESP20: 1st Workshop on Requirement Management in Enterprise Systems Projects @ SE20, Innsbruck, Austria 13