Analyze a Product Concept
Analyzing a concept in terms of target costs, compliance, requirements fulfilled or similar parameters enables you to make informed decisions on the future of the concept.
To compare target and actual metrics of the units of a concept structure, you must roll up or recalculate the attributes. The roll up results in the calculation of variance in the actual and target metric attributes, across all units of the concept structure, as applicable. In the Metrics view, a warning icon next to concept structure units indicates unfavorable variance values.
The following metrics are calculated during a roll up:
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Cost, Weight, and Power Consumption
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Compliance
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Status
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Component and Concept Score
Use a spider chart to view aggregated metrics across multiple solution alternatives, in a graphical or tabular form.
Use an item status chart to view concept maturity in terms of item composition of the concept, in a pie chart.
Costs, Weights, and Power Consumption
Cost, weight, and power consumption metrics are calculated by aggregating the total values of linked items, concept components, and embedded concepts, up to the top-level concept.
Total cost calculations are tabulated as follows:
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Total cost of an individual item or concept component = Material Cost + Nonmaterial Cost
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Total cost of a concept component assembly = Nonmaterial Cost + Aggregate of (Total cost of each item or component * Respective Quantities per Assembly)
Total Weight of a concept component assembly = Aggregate of (Actual Weights of each linked item, concept component, and embedded concept * Respective Quantities)
Total Power Consumption of a concept component assembly = Aggregate of (Actual Power Consumption of each linked item, concept component and embedded concept * Respective Quantities)
Compliance
The compliance status of a concept component or a linked item defines the compliance of the next higher-level component.
The compliance statuses of items are read directly from PLM. They're mapped as either compliant or noncompliant items in Innovation Management, depending on the completeness of information available.
A noncompliant item or component renders its higher-level component noncompliant also.
Fulfilled Requirements
You can analyze the number of assigned and fulfilled requirements per individual components in the concept structure, as applicable. This analysis can aid in fine-tuning the accuracy of a proposed concept design in meeting user needs.
Status
The statuses of individual components and linked items in a concept assembly decide the aggregated status of the higher-level component, up to the top-level concept.
Items in PLM may be linked in the concept structure while they're in conceptual, preliminary, or production stage.
The Item Status Pie Chart displays the composition of a concept structure in terms of items according to their lifecycle phases. Use the item status chart to view how close to maturity a concept is, and identify items in the concept structure that constitute different segments of the pie chart.
Concept Score
Concept scores allow the assessment of the concept structure against design objectives.
Concept-level scores are calculated by adding points earned in the following measures:
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the number of items in the structure, compared to concept components: reuse of items scores extra points
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the number of items with scores higher than the target value 85: a high percentage of high-scoring items in the structure raises the concept score
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the number of items missing data such as compliance status, lead time, number of manufacturers, or preferred status: complete items score high
Other details such as quality incidences and manufacturer parts are also included in a PLM item score rollup when it's included in a concept structure. Concept scores can also be used to evaluate solution alternatives for a concept.
Item Score
An item is considered to be complete for score calculation if it contains the following data: Overall Compliance, Lead Time and Number of Manufacturer Parts.
Spider Chart
The Spider Chart enables you to compare metrics across solution alternatives. Metrics are normalized - the relative deviation of each actual value from the target value is calculated and displayed as a positive or negative deviation from the target value.
A Table view summarizes the data of the Spider Chart - calculated variance and metrics per solution alternatives - for quick reference.