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