Managing nested effectivity

A product structure may include a product that has its own effectivity that is separate from that of the product structure. For example, the product structure of a car may include an engine that is obtained from an external supplier. In this case, the effectivity of the engine differs from the effectivity of the car. You can use nested effectivity to change the end item context when you configure the car, as only one effectivity can be set in a revision rule; in this example, you must set the effectivity from car to engine at the engine.

Note You can use nested effectivity with date or unit number effectivity. To accommodate variations of effectivity within a product, you create a configuration item to attach to each assembly that is configured by a different end item to the top-level item. In the previous example, you would create a configuration item for the engine and the effectivity of the configuration unit defines the engine assemblies. A configuration item is where the effectivity context of the structure changes; it defines a new end item for the affected substructure. You can create a mapping table to define the ranges of dates or unit numbers in the top-level product that configure a particular unit number or effective date in the lower level assembly. When you expand the product structure and apply a revision rule, the unit number or date set at the top level is converted to the scheme defined in the mapping specified for the assembly.