Grading structures

Teamcenter allows you validate that the design represented by the product structure contains only approved parts. This process is sometimes called BOM grading. Parts approved for use in one project or locale may not be approved for another project or locale. For example, a part may comply with a European standard but not a U.S. standard. Tracking such approvals manually is time-consuming, and this feature automates much of the effort. Grading results are stored in a structure context associated with the validated product or assembly, and may be retrieved when required. The grading process checks that each part (item revision) is valid under all conditions under the selected checker. If the structure contains subassemblies, it checks each part in the context of each subassembly. It also checks generic design elements (GDEs) if any are included in the structure. For example, if you want to check that a product is valid for the U.S. market or the Asia market, the administrator may create the checkAsiaComplianceRule, checkUSComplianceRule, and CheckPartIsApproved conditions and assign them to business objects using verification rules. These conditions may be included in two separate checkers, as follows: Asia checker checkAsiaComplianceRule and CheckPartIsApproved conditions U.S. checker checkUSComplianceRule and CheckPartIsApproved conditions CheckPartIsApproved is a common condition and can be assigned to any checker. For a checker to approve the entire structure, each part and subassembly must pass validation. Depending on your company's working practices, you may be able to request a temporary or permanent override on a failed or unknown part or subassembly to achieve an overall approval. Each such request must be authorized by a designated person, for example, a project manager.

Note Before using this feature, the administrator must do the following: Create conditions and associate them with business objects using verification rules in Business Modeler IDE. A condition contains multiple expressions that evaluate part attributes to ensure they are approved. Add the conditions to a checker in Validation Manager. Create a checker for every project, product, or locale against which you want to grade the structure. Only one BOM grading agent is permitted and all checkers must be included in that agent. Set the necessary preferences.