AP 210 Specific Contexts

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Product_context

The product_context entity identifies a high level engineering discipline as a context. Often this discipline is considered culturally or from a business perspective to be the discipline responsible for the product. This context data has no explicit or implied relation to the "views" of the product provided by product_definition enitities. For AP 210 which supports multiple disciplines for one product, there is no required subtype of product_context. There is no standard character string set for the value for the attribute discipline_type. If populated, values such as:

• "analog",
• "device",
• "digital",
• "electrical",
• "electrical-mechanical",
• "industrial",
• "logistics",
• "mechanical",
• "microwave",
• "packaging"
• "photonic".
• "rf",
• "system",
• "video",

are recommended. If used, it is recommended that the discipline_type attribute indicate the primary discipline type of the organization responsible for the product. Products in the domain of AP 210 may be physical or may be intellectual (a set of requirements for example). An identifier for this discipline will likely appear in the product category network and there may be a product_definition associated with this discipline. AP 210 permits industrial engineering organizations to consider their data definitions as 'design' data. A typical example of this is the 'panel' designed by an industrial engineering organization in a manufacturing company. This is just as valid a use of AP 210 as is a single circuit card design. The product categories, product identifiers, and organization identifiers provided by AP 210 allow the context to be preserved. Note that terms such as "MCM-D, MCM-L" are considered in AP 210 to be product categories and not discipline categories.

Pre-processor Recommendations: Implementation agreements may specify values for the discipline_type attribute.

Post-processor Recommendations: Post-processors should preserve string values.

Product_definition_context

The product_definition_context entity identifies the context for product definitions in the AP 210 domain. The product_definition_context entities will establish the viewing perspective and therefore the requirements source for product_definition entities. Each product_definition entity may have its own instance of product_definition_context in order to unambiguously define the context. There is no standard set of character strings for the life_cycle_stage attribute of product_definition_context. The life_cycle_stage attribute is mapped to the AP 210 domain requirement Ee_product_definition.discipline_id. It is recommended that the engineering discipline that created the product_definition_context (and the associated product_definition) be identified with this attribute. The life_cycle_stage attribute and the approval_level attribute are the only attributes available to distinguish product_definition discipline and life cycle concepts. Use them wisely. The recommended values for this attribute are:

• "electrical",
• "industrial",
• "logistics",
• "maintainability",
• "mechanical",
• "reliability",
• "software",
• "system",

followed optionally by either "definition, analysis", followed optionally by one of:

• "as required",
• "as designed",
• "as planned",
• "as built",
• "as maintained".

The intent is that there would be one or more strings that identify the discipline and purpose of the context. It will be necessary to include these strings in exchange agreements since they are not part of the standard. In some cases, there are non-sensical and redundant combinatations of the values entirely possible. In some cases where shape data is present (i.e., for subtypes of physical_unit or subtypes of part_template_definition), additional standard contextual information is provided. The additional data (included as several descriptive_representation_item) describes:

• material condition,
• purpose,
• usage environment.

The product_definition_context entity inherits a name attribute from the supertype application_context_element. Standard string values for the name attribute are:

• "design requirement",
• "functional definition",
• "functional design usage",
• "functional network design",
• "functional occurrence",
• "layout occurrence",
• "physical design",
• "physical design usage",
• "physical occurrence",
• "requirement",
• "template definition".

These values are mapped from the requirements specified in clause 4.2 of AP 210 for subtypes of Ee_product_definition. For formal definitions, the definitions in 4.2 for the application objects associated with these strings shall be referenced. Do not assume that these values map automatically onto the recommended values for the life_cycle_stage attribute. There is no replacement for common sense. Some examples of these are:"physical design" indicates that the context is a "design" context with a model that describes physical things. It does not specify that the associated product_definition has a shape associated or that the shape is a solid model (if there is a shape). "physical design usage" indicates that the context is a "usage" context; in this context there is sufficient information to incorporate the design into another design, but there may be insufficient information to produce a product. "physical occurrence" indicates that the associated product_definition will contain additional information specific to the occurrence of an item beyond that in the original "design" or "usage" contexts. "functional definition" indicates that the context is an abstraction or representation of some behaviour. As an example of a perhaps unique usage, a mechanical analysis application may choose to use the "functional network design" to model a physical item (certainly only valid under some simplifying assumptions).

Pre-processor Recommendations: See above.

Post-processor Recommendations: Post-processors shall interpret string values in accordance with the AP 210 mapping table.

Product_concept_context

The product_concept_context entity identifies what market segment or customers provided requirements for the data. This entity will establish the source of the requirements for product_concept entities.

Pre-processor Recommendations: Implementors agreements may establish values for the market_segment_type attribute.