Phantom Assemblies in ENOVIA SmarTeam

For any who create or interact with Bills of Material, you know that there are often structures in the design that should be consolidated in the BOM – phantoms (sometimes also called “ghost” assemblies).  There are also sometimes components, and even entire structures, that should not be represented at all in the BOM.  To help accommodate these needs, ENOVIA SmarTeam’s BOM functionality provides flexibility when it comes to displaying and rolling up items in a BOM structure.  In particular, the InBOM attribute and related functionality is worth diving into for addressing these needs. 

The display and roll-up behavior of a subassembly and its components within a BOM structure is controlled via the SmarTeam tree link attribute, “InBOM”.  This attribute was introduced as part of the SmarTeam Engineering Express methodology and is present in PLMDB on the Documents Tree link.  It controls the roll-up behavior of a document’s related item (or child items) within a BOM structure.  Valid values include “Yes”, “No”, and “Phantom”.  A value of “Yes” includes the subassembly (and any children with a “Yes” value) in the BOM.  A value of “No” omits the entire subassembly including children, grandchildren, etc.  A value of “Phantom” omits the top level subassembly item, but includes any children configured with a “Yes” value.  Additionally, when using “Phantom”, the children will show on the BOM as attached to the parent of the phantom item and the quantities will be rolled-up (with appropriate calculations) for the children configured to be included.

Note that each time a subassembly’s ”InBOM” value is updated, the BOM must be updated by invoking the Create/Update BOM from Document Tree command for the changes to take effect.  This can be done via a right mouse click on the top level assembly.

To demonstrate the behavior of the “InBOM” attribute, let’s look at an assembly with multiple subassemblies.  The image below shows the Documents Tree of the “2 SEATER JET SKI”.  Note that we’ll be configuring the subassembly “PANEL PCB” in the following example.

InBOM = Yes (Full Structure)

By default, a document’s “InBOM” value is “Yes”.  This will result in the subassembly being displayed in the structure.  The image below shows the “InBOM” attribute on the Composition tab of the “PANEL PCB” profile card:

When the BOM structure of the jet ski is shown in the BOM editor, the “PANEL PCB” item is displayed along with the child “SQUARE BOARD”.  For clarity, all children in the “PANEL PCB” subassembly other than the Square Board are configured with an “InBOM” value of “No”.

InBOM = No (Exclude from BOM)

In the following example, the “InBOM” attribute is set to “No” on the “PANEL PCB” profile card to demonstrate the effect on the BOM.

With the “PANEL PCB” set to “No”, the subassembly and all its children do not show up in the BOM structure.

InBOM = Phantom (Children Rolled-up)

In this last example, the “InBOM” attribute is set to “Phantom” to show the effect this option has on the subassembly and its children.

 The “PANEL PCB” does not show in the BOM structure.  However, the “SQUARE BOARD” is shown as a child of the jet ski with a rolled-up quantity of three since there were three “PANEL PCB” components in the assembly.

There you have it, the flexibility of phantom assemblies in ENOVIA SmarTeam.  If you have questions about this functionality, or about BOM methodologies or SmarTeam BOM best practices in general, please contact us – we’re experts at ENOVIA SmarTeam BOM.

Tags: ENOVIA SmarTeam, ENOVIA SmarTeam BOM, phantom, PLMDB, SmarTeam Engineering Express