Understand pack, unpack, and summarization of items

Understand pack, unpack, and summarization of items Understand the fundamental concepts of pack, unpack, and summarization in Teamcenter and how they simplify complex product structures. Pack Packing refers to the process of consolidating multiple identical occurrences of an item within a structure into a single line item, along with its total quantity. This is useful for simplifying complex and large structures, especially when dealing with many instances of the same part, like four standard wheels on a car. By packing, you reduce the visual clutter and make the structure easier to read and manage. Unpack Unpack is an action of expanding a packed line item back into its individual occurrences within the structure. When you unpack an item, like the wheels, Teamcenter displays each occurrence separately in the structure. This is particularly useful when you need to inspect each instance independently, especially if they have unique positional variances or other specific attributes that differentiate them. Unpacking allows for detailed scrutiny and individual management of each occurrence. Summarization Summarization applies exclusively to the engineering BOM. An item in engineering BOM is summarized when it is aligned with more than one design occurrences (a one-to-many alignment relationship). The summarized item acts as a consolidated representation for all those alignments. Teamcenter also creates an exploded line for each individual design occurrence aligned to that summarized engineering BOM item, allowing you to inspect or manage each alignment independently. This is helpful to you when you are working with quantity-managed structures, variant formulas, and piece-part alignments, where each exploded line can carry its own variant condition derived from both the summary line and the specific design occurrence it represents. When you open the product in the Contents tab, it shows the summarized lines; whereas, in the 3D view, it shows the exploded lines. The following table describes the pack, unpack, and summarization concepts. Concept Applied to Trigger Purpose Pack Any structure Multiple identical occurrences at the same level Reduce visual clutter, shows combined quantity. Unpack Any structure Expand a packed line. Inspects or edits individual occurrences. Summarization Engineering BOM One engineering BOM item is aligned to multiple design occurrences Represents one-to-many alignments. Engineering BOM Management ─ Usage, 2606 Unpublished work. © 2026 Siemens