Management of Supplemental Parts

In the Eplan parts management it is possible to create and manage "supplemental parts" by means of the new "supplemental parts" record type. Supplemental parts can be a component of assemblies or modules or can be added as accessories. In assemblies and modules, supplemental parts are used as placeholders, additional information or virtual components.

Benefit:

An essential feature of the supplemental parts is their systematic separation from the rest of the parts inventory. They are not displayed in the Insert center, in the part selection, in the device selection as well as in the part master data navigator and can therefore not be placed or ordered as independent parts. When managing assemblies and modules, however, they can be added as components and/or as accessories.

It is possible during the manufacturing data export to use supplemental parts to transfer specific technical information such as the material or the material thickness that is decisive for the selection of the right machining tools (for example milling cutter, drill, etc.). This means that supplemental parts have a central role for 3D design and the data exchange with manufacturing systems (e.g. with the Rittal - RiPanel Processing Center).

Supplemental parts are typically used for the following purposes:

To provide additional technical information such as material, surface, color or dimensions
To fulfill documentation purposes, for example for the identification of mounting aids, placeholders or properties that are relevant for the manufacturing data export.

To create a supplemental part, the new Supplemental part record type is available to you under the New popup menu item in the tree view of the parts management - when selecting a generic product group such as "Electrical engineering".

Display and evaluation of supplemental parts

The Suppress in bill of materials property is selected on the Properties tab for supplemental parts. This cannot be changed. This means that supplemental parts are neither displayed as individual parts in the bill of materials navigator nor output in the corresponding part assemblies ("Parts list", "Summarized parts list", etc.) and are also not exported via the interfaces for manufacturing data.

Supplemental parts are not displayed as individual parts in the following locations:

Insert center
Part selection / device selection
Part master data navigator

Component of assemblies or modules

Supplemental parts can be selected during the part selection for assemblies and modules. In order to be able to differentiate between components and supplemental parts in assemblies and modules, the Record type column has been added to the Assembly and Module tabs.

Taking supplemental parts into account when breaking up assemblies or modules

Supplemental parts can only be output as a component of assemblies and modules, for example when breaking up in the part assemblies as well as during the manufacturing data export. To this purpose the assemblies and modules have to be broken up during the respective action.

In order for the supplemental parts to be output you must also have activated the new Include supplemental parts setting. This is possible at different points in the program (for example in the settings for part assemblies).

Depending on the context, the setting is also called Include supplemental parts (assemblies), Include supplemental parts (parts list), etc. This makes it clear to which part record type or report it refers.

Supplemental parts as accessories

A supplemental part can be an accessory part or component of an accessory list. It is therefore also possible to activate the Part is accessory setting for a supplemental part on the Accessories tab.

Data exchange

Supplemental parts are taken into consideration when exporting and importing in EDZ or XML format and can be modified via different editing methods (external editing, Eplan API).

To allow you to specify whether supplemental parts are to be exported or not when exporting the parts data, the Export records dialog has been extended with settings options for the supplemental parts in the Record type field.