eric_h - Friday, August 19, 2011 4:32 PM:
I am trying to figure how to best handle a part's lifecycle not messing too much with the out-of-box functionality. If you take a look at the part lifecycle map, you'll notice it is almost more like the lifecycle of that rev, but does not really represent the lifecycle of whatever physical item that part number represents. The way things work, at least as I am getting it, your change workflows drive change lifecycles, which then trigger method code that drives the part lifecycle. It is my understand looking at all of this that if you mess to much with the part lifecycle labels and names you'd have to alter the method code.
I came up with what I thought was potentially a pretty cool idea. If I imagine the 'State' property (as defined by the state any given rev is at in the part lifecycle map) as really being 'Rev State', which in essence is only telling you where that rev is at in regards to the change processes, I can create a separate definition of what/where the overall production lifecycle is at.
My idea was to create a new property, a list called something like 'Stage' or 'Part Lifecycle'. I would define the list to have entries like 'Preliminary', 'Development', 'Pilot', 'Production' (I could also include things like 'EOL', 'Obsolete', etc.) The idea would be that we could define the product stage per rev, and we could then look at the state to see where that rev was at in the controlled/approval processes. Even better, but if I could add as a foreign property the stage value to the 'Affected Items' table, we could see the values listed in the affected items list, though not sure yet if this is doable.
So I guess my question is, does anyone have any suggestion or ideas related to what I am talking about here? I am not tied to the above idea and want to keep an open mind as to what is possible. Are there other ways people have handled the whole concept of product/part number as an entity lifecycle vs. just where that rev is at in the approval process as it seems to be set out of the box? Also, let me know if I am missing something or seeing it wrong.
Thanks,
Eric
