PDM Configuration

Create and maintain engineering parts and their revisions as the master engineering record for a product. Each engineering part revision is the parent of the product structure, document survey, approval routing, change requests and spare parts, and is released once its requirements are met.

Build and maintain the multilevel engineering product structure (engineering BOM) from engineering part revisions. The structure provides consists-of and where-used views, characteristics roll-up calculations, structure difference reports and can be activated to freeze the design.

Define technical attributes, technical classes, class templates and class groups to specify parts and design objects, and manage part characteristics templates. Assigning a class copies its attributes onto the part, supports best-fit search, and requires approved characteristics before a part can be released.

Set up configurable parts by defining configuration characteristics, configuration families, part configuration revisions and back-office rules (formulas and combination tables). Released part configuration revisions generate configuration specifications with a unique configuration ID used by sales, planning and manufacturing.

Register, classify, revise, approve and release engineering documents and connect them to engineering part revisions via document requirements and the document survey. Approval routing (electronic sign-off), access control, document structures/packages and EDM check-in/out govern document quality and traceability.

Creates and maintains the serviceable view of the product: the service BOM of spare parts that field and depot technicians can order and fit, together with the technical documentation that tells them how. In IFS Cloud this is delivered through the engineering part revision, which is the parent of the part structure, document survey, document requirements, approval routing and spare parts, integrated with IFS Document Management for revision control and electronic signature. The process ends with an approved revision, an engineering change note and distribution of the updated documentation to field, depot and dealer audiences.

In IFS Cloud the engineering BOM lives on the engineering part revision, which is the parent of the Consists Of and Where Used structure as well as the document survey, approval routing, development journal and change request. A revision is created with Create New Revision, optionally copying the previous revision structure and document survey, then approved before use, while the manufacturing product structure remains a separate, site-specific object. A configuration baseline is not an IFS object: it is expressed as a set of approved engineering part revisions plus the released document revisions connected to them.