Basic concepts

Engineers group parts into assemblies to allow reuse of the same assemblies elsewhere in the product or in other products. An assembly can contain components that are piece parts or assemblies. In this way, you can model a complete product structure as a hierarchy of single-level assemblies. Teamcenter supports two methods of modeling parts. You can create an item that represents the part and CAD design simultaneously, which is the method familiar to former users of Teamcenter Engineering Process Management. You can also create parts and designs separately, then link (publish) parts and designs when they are ready to release. You can view previously created graphics that represent all or part of the structure, allowing easy visual identification of a component in the structure. Structure Manager allows you to create assemblies that are one of the following: Precise A precise assembly references a specific revision of each component. Imprecise In an imprecise assembly, the revision configured in the Structure Manager window is determined by the revision rule currently in force. You can define sophisticated revision rules to configure the structure in different ways. For example, you can use revision configuration based on the release status of each item revision. This allows you to configure the structure according to its effective date or unit number, or the date released. To take full advantage of Structure Manager, you should be familiar with the Teamcenter elements that are used to define and present product structure, the basic process of creating product structure, and how item revisions relate to how you manage default and multiple product views.