Overview of Phantom Explosion in Work Orders

A phantom represents a product that is physically built but not stocked, before being used in the next stage or level of manufacturing. It is a method to move around a group of components having the same item name. When you create a work definition for a parent product item, you can specify the supply type of a component as phantom. You can define work definitions for phantoms in the same way as any other product items.

During the creation of a work order which references a work definition, the following happens:

The application selects the appropriate work definition version based on the work definition date specified and explodes the work definition by copying its operations, resources and component items.
When a component item with phantom supply is required for an operation, the application looks for a work definition for the phantom item, explodes the same by copying its constituent components and resources to the same operation.
The action of whether only components or both components and resources must be inherited is determined by the plant parameter Phantom Operation Inheritance.
If multiple levels of phantoms are encountered during the explosion process, the application keeps exploding though all levels until no further child phantoms are encountered.
At any level, if the explosion process does not find a work definition for a phantom, it uses the item structure to explode that phantom level and its lower levels. If an item structure is also not defined for a phantom item, further explosion is not performed for that node.

Note: Phantom assemblies act like normal assemblies when they represent a top-level assembly, such as when you create a work order on it. However, as a subassembly, they lose their identity as distinct assemblies, and are a collection of their components and resources.

Note: The same item can be used in a phantom supply in certain work definitions and a regular stock component in other work definitions.

Phantom Explosion in Process Manufacturing

The phantom explosion in process manufacturing adheres to the following business rules:

During explosion of a phantom input item, the application restricts to Process Manufacturing work method with no mingling of Discrete Manufacturing and Process Manufacturing work methods.
Components and resources are inherited to the same operation as phantom input item honors plant parameter for phantom operation inheritance, but ignores multiple output items from the phantom work definition.
Considers phantom item structures if no phantom work definition exists
In case of phantom within a phantom, if structure is considered, the work definitions will not be considered again and the explosion continues based only on the structure.