The specification revision handling is an important function, enabling users to modify specifications during project work without disturbing the people who are already using them.
Specification revision handling allows you to issue a specification. An issued specification is frozen against further modification. Freezing a specification is important in cases where specifications must be approved by any project or enterprise party; for example, in a project where the client approves the specifications that are delivered to an engineering office for design.
If an issued specification has to be modified later, create a revision for it.
A revised specification initially is a copy of the last issued specification. After creating the revision, you must review all parts of the specification.
Within Smart Reference Data, the following entities are involved into the specification revision management:
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Project default ZX_ALLSPEC – With this project default, you have the option to define whether specification revision handling is going to be used to control specifications in a project or not.
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Revision Active indicator – This indicator controls the revision number for a complete project or product group. The highest revision of all project specifications produces the highest project revision number. This indicator has to be switched to Y to activate (display) specifications with this revision.
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Revision number - The revision number is created by the software for a specification going to be revised after it was issued. It is a sequence starting with 0 (zero). Highest revision means highest revision number per specification. Last revision means highest revision minus one.
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Specification issue indicator - This indicator shows if a specification is issued or not. If the indicator is marked, the specification is issued and cannot be changed any more.
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Specification release indicator - With the spec release indicator, a project can decide if an issued spec/spec revision from the product group is released for a specific project or not.
The following diagrams give schematic overviews about how these five different entities are acting together and forming the specification revision management in Smart Reference Data.
There are two different diagrams necessary, because the revision management is different regarding project or product group specifications.
This diagram shows how a product group specification is displayed as a project spec, for example, in the Bill-of-Materials (BOM) module.
This diagram shows how a project specification is displayed as a project spec for example in the BOM module.
Smart Materials allows the user to decide if the specification revision handling is used or not.
If a client decides not to use it, many parts of this document are only interesting to produce the decision. In this case, the project default ZX_ALLSPEC has to be set to Y, which means Smart Materials always shows and works with all available specifications.
If specification revision handling is not used, specifications can be issued and revised. However, the revisions are not filtered unless one general rule.
The BOM only shows the actual highest revision and the last revision of a spec, regardless of how many total revisions exist.
In the following case, specification revision management is used and discussed, which means that ZX_ALLSPEC is set to N unless specified otherwise.