Product Structure Analysis - Alternative Tools

GEA Farm Technologies

Visualize complex dependencies in ERP/PLM context

Matthias Ahrens - Technical Solutions Manager

100164 BU Dairy & Farm Equipment – BU Support

2015-05-26

Product Structure Analysis – Alternative Tools

GEA Farm Technologies 2 2015-05-26 / Product Structure Analysis - Alternative Tools / M. Ahrens

• Present alternative tools and a pathway, which can be used for the

visualization of complex product structures and dependencies in

reference to variant analysis and management tasks.

Intention

Variant A

Variant B

Variant C

Variant D

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• For product structures design / redesign tasks of entire product

families, the dependencies between the different modules,

configuration criteria, commercial figures, etc. have to be discussed

and communicated between the involved roles like engineers, product

managers, system architects, etc.

• In addition to spreadsheet reports a network illustration of various

module / product assembly scenarios (e.g. GOZINTO Graph) can help

on visualizing the complexity of impacts and dependencies.

Requirement

Source: http://www.wu.ac.at/erp/webtrainer/erm-webtrainer/theory/


• The available PLM / SAP tools offer various tools to support the

analysis of complex relationships. (e.g. Teamcenter: Relation Browser

& Impact Analysis / SAP: Product Structure Browser)

• If data from both frameworks and/or additional sources have to be

visualized in combination, those tools cannot be used.

Situation

Source: http://plmconnections.com/print_article.php?cpfeatureid=66060 Source: http://www.cideon-software.com/


• Export required data to offline tools, which are developed to analyze

and visualize large networks and dependencies

Proposal

SAP

Teamcenter

ERP State

Real product

PLM State

Virtual product

Network /

Ontology

Visualization

Tool

e.g.

CS_BOM_EXPL_MAT_V2()

Function Module

Product structure and

data export

e.g.

PLMXML / XSLT

e.g.

Cytoscape

Protégé

Gephi


• A customized Transfermode with customized closure rules and

properties sets was configured in Teamcenter 8.3

• A customized XSLT stylesheet was developed and attached to the

Transfermode to convert the Teamcenter PLMXML format into a

GraphML format, which can be imported into Cytoscape

(http://www.cytoscape.org)

e.g. Teamcenter to Cytoscape via PLMXML / XSLT


• The GraphML format can be used to define <node> elements and

connection elements <edge> between this nodes.

• <data> elements can be added to nodes and edges to transmit

additional properties and information.

• With these elements hierarchical BOM structures can be represented.

GraphML as vehicle

Source: http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/


• The GraphML format allows to map any kind of data to nodes / edges

• Cytoscape can import multiple structure in one session and can

merge them into a single network graph.

Cytoscape


• The Vizmapper application (Style tab) inside Cytoscape provides a

fast way to modify the appearance of product structure nodes / edges

by various attributes (e.g. Status, Ownership, etc.),

Cytoscape


• Multiple structural dependencies for modules and components can be

visualized in an overlay based on the exported BOM structure data.

Cytoscape


• Various network analysis, selection and filter methods are provided to

rate, cluster, analyze structural dependencies.

Cytoscape


• The edit and data import function provides the capability to enhance

the visual illustration for other numerical data

(e.g. Cost from ERP Database).

Cytoscape


• With the Tool Panel you can arrange selected nodes to align,

distribute and stack them to create an accurate visual representation

of complex dependencies.

Cytoscape

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Engineering

Product Structure Analysis - Alternative Tools