Feature Based Documentation
Feature Based Documentation to increase the end product’s configurability and reduce internal efforts.
OEMs and suppliers of the automotive industry are facing the challenge of continuously extending and diversifying their product range, in order to:
- serve new markets
New markets force companies to adapt to the new demands and expectations that customers have about their products. - comply with stricter legislation (e.g. emission, noise, safety, security,…)
Legislative changes can lead to changes in the product itself that force the producer to adapt. - satisfy increasing customer demands
Increasing demands from customers leads to changes in the production and the product itself. - offer new functions such as electric drivetrains or autonomous driving.
To stay competitive, products need to be fitted with new features that keep them attractive.
Market participants are therefore developing modular product and production platforms to both increase the configurability of their end-products and reduce the variety/complexity of parts and processes.
For the documentation of extensive product and production platforms, feature-based documentation systems have been established as the market standard.
Feature-based documentation – Basic Idea of Super BoM
Instead of creating a BoM (Bill of Material) for each product of the portfolio, feature based documentation creates one Super BoM describing all possible combinations which can be built.
A specific customer order is specified by a model type plus a string of features. The content of the end product is derived by “decoding variants” from a “Super BoM – Bill of Material“ following the usability rules described as a Boolean combination of features.
The Super BoM contains all subproducts (assemblies, sub-assemblies, parts) of the entire platform’s product range. So there is only one BoM for all buildable products.
Key Benefits – Simple description of orders, flexible creation of products
Feature-based documentation systems (Super-BoMs) have decisive advantages compared to 100% parts lists, such as:
- Each sub-product (e.g. sub-assembly) of an end product (e.g. vehicle) only needs to be documented once
- The configurability of the end product (e.g. vehicle) follows previously defined rules of buildability
- With each new order, new configurations can be created which have been never been built before
- Product content (versioning) that changes over the product lifecycle can be traced transparently
- Algorithms allow continuous adjustment of the platform’s complexity to the market needs and cost
EFS Consulting bring their experience to set up and optimize documentation
EFS Consulting has a team of experts who will train, support or take over product documentation for complex portfolios.
Set up a new documentation from scratch
Starting on blank paper, we will set up a product documentation for your product range ready to upload to your BoM system. We could either do this ourselves, let’s call it “documentation as a service” or we take your team along the journey and train them how to do it themselves.
Change from 100% BoM to Super BoM
We will migrate a built-to-stock (BTS) documentation system into a built-to-order (BTO) system. Along with updating the documentation we might guide your organisation through the transformation process along the entire value chain from configuration, ordering, purchasing, production to aftersales.
Optimize your product portfolio
Given a documentation of an established product portfolio we will apply our toolkit to streamline your portfolio according to what the market is really looking for. Taking a holistic approach, we do not only look at volumes to keep an eye on profit margin, complexity and CO2 footprint.