Managing body BOMs in body-in-white manufacturing > Feature basics

Create features

Procedure

Select an item in a product structure.
Choose File→New→Manufacturing Feature.

Teamcenter displays the New Manufacturing Feature dialog box.

Select the type of feature that you want to create from the list of types and click Next.

You can select from:

ArcWeld

Datum Point

Fastener

Fastener Group

Weld Point

Click Assign to automatically assign a unique ID.
Type a name for the new feature. Make it unique so you can search the database using this term.

By default, the display name for features is the name that you type here. You can configure the display name using the MEMFGDisplayName preference. Note If you have multiple features that you want to have the same name, you must change the MEMFGDisplayName default value of bl_occurence_name to bl_item_item_id and bl_item_object_name.

(Optional) Type a description for the feature.
Click Next.

Teamcenter displays the form associated with the revision of the feature.

(Optional) Enter item revision attributes and click Next.

You can use the Manufacturing Search view to find features based on the values entered in this form.

(Optional) If you are creating a weld point, type location information using the X, Y, Z coordinates and an orientation degree and click Next.

The units displayed in the location boxes are derived from the assembly with which you are working. The values you enter here are stored in the SpotWeld attribute form and on its occurrence. You can change the location of a weld point later by using the Graphics→Transformation→Persistent Transformation command, but this new location information is no longer stored in the attribute form. It is stored on the weld point’s occurrence only. In addition, after creating the features, you can change the values in the weld point’s form, but the new values do not change the position of the weld.

(Optional) Enter data into the feature’s form.

This form contains feature-specific attributes. If you entered location information in the previous step, the values are stored in this form. If you create datums, you select which type of datum in the Datum Type box in this form. You can select from:

Datum Surface (default)

Datum Pin

Measurement Datum

The feature’s attribute form is attached to the latest revision of the newly created feature using a TC_Feature_Form_Relation relation.

Select a JT file to graphically represent the feature and click Next.

You can choose to use the default file, or select a customized file. The name of the dataset containing the default file is specified in the following preferences:

For weld points: MENEWMFG_DefaultWeldPointJTDatasetName

For datums: MENEWMFG_DefaultDatumJTDatasetName The default JT file for datums is dependent on the Datum Type value you set in the attribute form.

The dataset is attached to the latest feature revision using the TC_Feature_Form_Relation relation. Note There is no default JT file available for arc welds.

Click Finish.

Teamcenter creates the feature under the selected item in the product structure.