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Item lifecycle phases

Purpose

Classifies item lifecycle phases, which distinguishes the lifecycle phases of documents, internally developed parts, and partner parts.

Where used

Documents, parts

Data fields

Name

This is the complete name for the lifecycle phase.

Description

This describes the lifecycle phase and its function.

Relative maturity

This value is used to indicate the maturity of the item to which this lifecycle phase is assigned, relative to other items' lifecycle phases. By definition, a zero value represents unrestricted production. Lower values are pre-production, and higher values are post-production.

Relative maturity is used within PDXpert to determine whether to apply the initial revisions sequence or subsequent revision sequence to a part or document. See help topics Program concepts > Items: Common elements and > Basic items: Documents and parts.

Active: users can select

Default member of collection

Permanent member of collection

For a description of these checkboxes, see the Collections reference > Common properties & attributes help topic.

Setup suggestions

The number of lifecycle phases is primarily determined by your business rules for controlling how an item should be constrained if it's not at Production (relative maturity 0).

Some people distinguish document lifecycle phases from part phases. For instance, a document may have Preliminary and Production status. A part may go through a more detailed cycle of Preliminary (do not buy yet), Prototype (buy in small quantities), Field test (buy in larger quantities), Production (unconstrained purchase), Service-only (for repair but not for new design), and finally Obsolete (do not use).

As is often the case, defining fewer members makes the collection easier to understand and manage.

2032

Help topics describe the most current PDXpert PLM software release, and may differ from earlier releases.