So today brings another new challenge. Purchasing wants to change where and how we buy a component we use a lot of in many different assemblies. In the past, we always bought this part as one part number, although it is made up of 4 distinct parts. Part 1 is always used in a base weldment, then parts 2-4 are added later. In the past, we always just put the part number we bought into the weldment assembly and on it's associated drawing/BOM. Part 1 got welded into place, then we left it up to our production folks to keep track of parts 2-4 until they were needed.

Now, we are going to buy the 4 distinct parts, each as it's own part number. But, the useage remains the same, part number 1 gets welded into place and part numbers 2-4 are added later. The same part numbers 2-4 must always be used with part number 1. So, to my question, is there a good way in SW to set it up such that when part number 1 is put into a weldment, the engineer is reminded/prompted to add part numbers 2-4 to a higher level assembly? I've thought about Smart Features, but it doesn't appear you can suppress or not-import the smart features in the lower level assemblies and unsuppress or import them in the higher level assembly. Hiding doesn't seem to work well because parts still show up in the BOM. Are configurations the answer?