Creating a flat structure for filtered in-process assemblies

Filtered in-process assemblies (FIPAs) from extremely large structures can themselves become very large, with many levels of nesting. These FIPAs can then be unwieldy to work with causing performance issues when loading this data to the embedded viewer or when sending data to Process Simulate. To alleviate this situation, you can create a filtered in-process assembly that contains just three levels:

• Level 1 contains the FIPA of the station just before the current station.

• Level 2 contains the FIPAs of the stations beneath the immediate child station of the current station.

• Level 3 contains the consumed parts of each FIPA.

The following examples show nested FIPAs and their resulting flat FIPAs.

Nested FIPA

Flat FIPA

Because P3_fipa and P2_fipa do not consume any parts, they are not displayed in the flat structure.

Any FIPAs that directly consume a part at any level are shown at the same level in the flat FIPA.

Nested FIPA with consumed parts

Flat FIPA with consumed parts

If a structure contains parallel stations, a particular FIPA may be contained under multiple FIPAs. Such FIPAs are shown only once in the flat FIPA at the location it is first encountered.

Nested FIPA with parallel stations

P5_fipa is contained within both P6_fipa and P7_fipa.

Flat FIPA for P11 with parallel stations

In the figure, you can see that P5_fipa is displayed only once in the flat FIPA structure.

You specify whether a FIPA structure is flat or nested in the MECreateFipaStructure preference. Once a FIPA is created, you cannot change its structure type. All FIPAs under a plant BOP have the same structure, either flat or nested.

If a FIPA that previously contained consumed parts, but has them removed, is updated, that FIPA is displayed in the updated FIPA, although it no longer contains consumed parts.

Flat FIPA before update

Flat FIPA after update

Although P2_fipa does not contain a directly consumed part, it is still shown in the flat FIPA.

When creating a FIPA, Teamcenter creates a log file that is attached to the process in which the FIPA is created. When updating, the log file is also updated. If no log file is attached at update (for FIPAs created in a version prior to Teamcenter 8.3.3), Teamcenter creates one during update.

Note

If you want to start using flat FIPAs on existing structures that already have nested FIPAs, you must delete all old nested FIPA structures and re-create new flat FIPA structures. In this case, any attached information such as simulation datasets is lost and you must recreate it.