Bussines process for DIR's version control

[Former Member]

Hello experts,

We work in a factory that design and manufacture complex products. These products have around 250/300 material in their BOMS (with 7 or 8 levels) and around the seventy percent of them have drawings associated. The material in BOMs can be purchased or manufactured and these drawings change a lot during these two phases.

Design users need to control when a drawing with a concrete version is in use (in purchasing or in manufacturing) to be sure that if they generate a new version, there won’t be any problem. In other words, the system should “block” a version that has been used in purchasing or in manufacturing.

What does “in use” means for us?

• Purchasing: A drawing is in use when we have a purchase order for a material with that drawing. Nowadays, this drawing is always assigned to the purchase order, so, if a designer generates a new version, the system indicates that this document is in a purchase order. Is there any option to “block” this version generation? I mean, we have the info but, is it possible to control this new version generation?

• Manufacturing: Once a drawing has been printed, it is in use. How can we control it?

Would it be correct to control these situations with different document statuses?? Which is the correct way to control this kind of scenarios? Do we need any kind of workflow?

Regards

Laura

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Laura,

There are two ways you can map your requirements into system.

Firstly, as you have mentioned, use of different document statues. To set control on documents use Authorization Object  C_DRAW_TCS. This object controls which users can process which document info records, based on a combination of activity, document type, and status.

Secondly, you can go with Change Masters (Engineering Change Management). This will help you in complete control of document creation/changes/release etc.

/Tilak Raj