About Frame Generator, LOD and BOM

I just replied on the newsgroup to one of our customers who was trying to create multiple configurations of a Frame Generator assembly.
And of course in the process he wanted to keep the BOM QTY correct.

Some of our users are confused which tool to use for such an operation:
level of detail representations (LOD) , view representations(Viewreps) or positional representations or something else?

Here is a short summary that clearly shows the differences between these representation mechanisms.

 

Conclusion:

Viewreps = visibility control of an assembly
LODreps = memory footprint control of an assembly by suppressing or substituting components
Posreps = static position control of components inside an assembly + access to overlays in drawings

To come back to the initial question: how do we accomplish multiple configurations with any of these representations?
The answer is: none of these 3 mechanisms are suited for this task.

Multiple configurations is best done by using iAssemblies and certainly not by using LOD (although intuitively you might be tempted to use LOD)
As you can see from the comparison table above a LOD has no effect on the BOM.
This means that a LOD does not show the BOM of the configuration but always shows the BOM of the master representation.

Let's concentrate on the real solution to our problem: iAssemblies.
Using iAssemblies with Frame Generator is a bit tricky and I would advise to only attempt this when your design is in the final stage. 
In order to use iAssemblies on a Frame Generator assembly, you will have to break the adaptivity with the skeleton part because it involves using a promote operation. 

Look at below video.It explains the process step by step and you will see  at the end of the video that modifications are no longer adaptive but the good news is that we will get the BOM configurations we were looking for.
In the video I demonstrate how to remove two reinforcement beams from the frame and from the BOM.
The full resolution video can be watched here.

Bob

Comments

[Peter]

Great tip Bob. It begs the question however - isn't it time for a bit of a Frame Generator update? I'm a real fan of Frame Generator helps - don't get me wrong, but you need to know it's limitations and their respective work-arounds - making it a tough tool to learn for a newbie. The above is one example of a limitation+workaround - another is quantities in BOM's (4 table legs list as 4 unique items etc). You can promote & demote to build sub-assemblies IF you type the sub assembly name rather than picking it... It's time for patterns, mirrored parts, inclusion of endplates, feet, gussets, connection details (surely you can do something smart in conjunction with bolted connections!). In my opinion, Frame Generator is great - but it's getting left behind. It could (and should) be sooooooo much better by now - but we're watching videos of more workarounds...

[Bob]

Completely agree with you Peter. And I can forward of course your request to our product design and product marketing folks. Unfortunately enhancement requests take time and need to be evaluated against a ton of other requets. So I like to take justice in my own hands so to speak and my immediate weapon to give you some kind of solution is the "workaround". Concerning your table legs example: I am not seeing this. When you look in the "Structured" tab of the BOM, if the 4 legs are identical,they should be all rolled up under one and the same part number item.

[Peter]

Thanks for your honesty Bob! I understand there must be thousands of good ideas out there that could be implemented - prioritising must be a nightmare! (But if you could nudge this along... ;-)

Regarding the table legs - my description wasn't the best. Maybe this workaround explains it better: http://cadprosystems.blogspot.com/2010/01/frame-generator-and-quantities-in.html

[Bob]

I looked at your video and yes, this painpoint unfortunately continues to exist in 2011. You used a clever way of incorporating the mass in the part number to get identical part numbers. I have explored similar avenues through the API by including the bounding box information rather than the mass. You might want to automate the process even more by using an iLogic rule to concatenate the stocknumber and mass to obtain the partnumber. Something like: iProperties.Value("Project", "Part number") = iProperties.Value("Project", "Stock number") +Str(iProperties.Mass)
Cheers
Bob