Introduction

An Alternate Item is an Engineering Item that can replace an existing one (called also “Primary Item”) in a specific usage of the Primary Item. This relation between the items is defined in the engineering phase and is used later in the manufacturing phase where alternative components might be required, instead of the primary ones. The Alternate Item has the same function as the Primary one, but can provide an alternative for specific needs, such as in the following:

• Engineering: weight, reliability
• Procurement: cost, delivery time, availability
• Manufacturing: machine capabilities

The Alternate Item has to be qualified for a specific usage in the enterprise as an official alternate before it can be used as such.

Three levels of alternate definition are managed in the Engineer Release Management widget:

• All usages:
  • The Alternate Item can replace the Primary Item in all usages of the Primary Items (= regardless of which parent this Primary Item is defined under)
• All instances of the Primary Item
  • The Alternate Item can replace all the instances of the Primary Item (under the current parent)
• Selected instances of the Primary Item:
  • The Alternate Item can replace one or several specific instances of the Primary Item (under the current parent)

The last two cases also can be referred to as the “substitute” cases as they are valid in a specific usage of the Primary Item (= under a specific parent).

Example:

In this example, the Primary Item W13_Guide Plate is a child of parent W13_Marketing Mechanism. There are six instances of this Primary Item under this parent.

You can define alternates for W13_Guide Plate as follows:

How to Define Alternates:

From the Engineering Release Management widget, you can use the “Alternate” tab in the information panel to define all possible alternates of the selected Engineering Item (or Primary Item):

The following set of options is displayed when attempting to create an alternate. Some options may be grayed out depending on the selected engineering item:

Note:

• When you want to define an alternate of a specific instance of the Primary Item, you will first need to select the “Usage View” in the widget in order to display all instances of the Primary Item. Then, you can select the relevant instance and define its alternate(s):

• During the alternate creation, using the “Add Alternate” panel (displayed above), the system can propose a reuse of existing alternates that are already available in a previous revision/branch of the same item, or in the original item, in case the current one is a duplication of it. This is made available through the “Discover Suggested Alternates” option.

Qualification/Obsolescence of Alternate Items:

Qualification/ obsolescence of Alternate Items can be completed manually using the menu from the Alternate Item itself:

Alternatively, you can use a change process that forces a usage of a Change Action for that purpose, to track and control the process.

Companies can enforce this process through an administration setting:

Tip:

To quickly add an Alternate Item to a Change Action, you can use the new option (available in R2021x FD05) to link the item to an existing Change Action:

Impact analysis of Alternates

Alternate relations are available in the “Relation” app, which enables navigation on the Alternate Item and its Primary Item (this relation is called “Interchangeability) as well as with other relations (such as Change Actions relations). These relations can be personalized to expose the specific ones relevant to the user.

Please review the following video that illustrates the usage of Change Action for alternate qualification.

Tips and Tricks ​​​​​​​