About Concept Structures

A concept structure is a preproduction assembly of concepts, concept components, and PLM items, specifically brought together to meet a given requirement.

Edit a concept structure to include:

• concept components you create, and copies of existing concept components

• embedded concepts

• links to external items and item assemblies

The location of a concept structure line item is defined by the sequence number, which is automatically assigned to entries in the concept structure, as they appear. Edit the numbered sequence manually when you export the concept structure to an Excel worksheet.

You must aim to have a concept structure that eventually fulfills design ideas and requirements, and primarily contains PLM items and item assemblies.

Available web services can help you execute various actions, including:

• Create, find, and delete a concept

• Add, update, and delete a concept component

• Create a concept or a version from an existing concept

Concept Components

Concept components in a concept structure are placeholders for future production items.

Add a concept component directly in the concept structure, detailing its name, quantity and type. Use the Specifications pane to detail the attributes of the concept component.

Search for an existing concept component in the Items and Components pane to add as a copy, including its attachments and design references.

Sub-Concepts

Use existing concepts in your concept structure as sub-concepts. While you can't edit or convert it to a PLM assembly directly from your concept structure, the data in sub-concepts is included in metric calculations and scores for your concept.

Linked Items and Assemblies

Search for and link PLM items and item assemblies from external sources to a concept structure. Reuse existing items to arrive at a production-ready concept structure faster.

You can't directly modify linked objects in your concept structure. You can either edit the item in the PLM application itself, or convert the item to a concept component with modifiable attributes.

View a Concept Structure

Remember, that you can view a concept structure in its default tabular form, or graphically but you can't edit it.

Search within the tabular form of a concept structure for concepts and components using predefined operators, and combinations of operators. Arrows highlight the search results. Use the Focus option to trace concept components, requirements, and items that are linked together within the concept.

Concept Structure Evolution

Typically, you can make a concept structure evolve along the following path:

1. Create a concept structure, either from start, or as a copy of an existing concept

2. Add item placeholders in the form of concept components

3. Replace concept components with existing or newly released PLM items, as they become available

4. Arrive at an approved concept structure consisting primarily of tangible PLM items and item assemblies

5. In the PLM application, approve the product prototype and process it as an item structure in downstream systems.

At any stage of the concept structure development, you can export the concept structure to an Excel worksheet for offline records.