An engineering part can be seen as an inherited child of a part in IFS/Part Catalog. In addition to being a part in the part catalog, an engineering part can be defined by its part detail, manufacturer part revisions, alternate components, and characteristics calculation.
An engineering part revision is a parent to the structure with "Consists of" and "Where used" functionality. It is also a parent to the document survey, approval routing, development journal, change request, function parts, document requirements, spare parts, and product models.
When you create a new engineering part, the system automatically inserts it into the part catalog. You can create a revision at the same time by specifying the revision in the current revision field. The system automatically provides a default for your first revision if you register a default revision in the basic data. Modify this default as you please, or clear the field if you do not want to make this first revision. The system will also generate a part number automatically if you leave the field open.
If the engineering part you are creating already exists in the part catalog, you need to ensure that unit code and standard name ID are identical with the information established in the part catalog. You can also make a new revision of an existing part.
Modifying an engineering part affects all revisions of the part because the engineering part data is common to all engineering part revisions with the same part number. You need to modify unit code, standard name ID, or description in the part catalog.
Removing an engineering part is possible only if it has no revisions.
Each part can have several manufacturers. Changes to the manufacturer parts are logged (the log is called Part Manufacturer History). All new manufacturer parts are, by default, set to Approved. User Approved and Date Approved are not set. Changes to the manufacturer part number are also logged in Part Manufacturer History.
Every engineering part can have one or several alternate parts. Alternate parts can be used in place of a primary part if the primary part is not available or has become obsolete, or if the use of an alternate part would result in cost savings. The alternate part, like the primary part, must be defined as an engineering part. An alternate part, in other words, is an engineering part connected to another engineering part.
If you need to provide a more thorough specification of a part's properties, you would use characteristics. The use of characteristics enables you to create dynamic templates, itemize the part's properties, and facilitate the search for the parts. Characteristic attributes can be height, width, diameter, color, material, weight, etc. When specifying an attribute, you can also define a unit, i.e., m, kg, and cm. To search for a part that fulfills your requirements, you can use a Best-Fit Search method.
A Characteristics template is a class of several attributes, both numeric and alphanumeric. You can assign a class to the part, and the template with all its attributes is copied onto the object. After assigning the class, you can specify a value for all attributes in the class.
Upon completion of the characteristics, you can approve them, i.e., toggle the status from Not Approved to Approved. A part with characteristics cannot be released before the characteristics have been approved.
Any numeric characteristics attribute can be calculated for all parts in a structure. You can, for instance, calculate the total weight of an engineering part.