CXInsight Configuration Management
The CXInsight Configuration Manager refers to the monitoring, recording and controlling of the changes in hardware, software, firmware, documentation, etc. with respect to a baseline. CXInsight configuration management enables the user to order, create and maintain the functional and physical requirements of a product throughout its entire life cycle.
Product configuration
A product configuration describes how the product is initially developed, (the development baseline), and built, (the product baseline), and how this is maintained throughout the entire product life cycle. The product configuration also describes from what elements (hardware, software, firmware, documentation, etc.) a product is composed; if the product is a variant and what variant and what version level it has. It also describes the variants and revision levels for all the individual building blocks within a product or system. Every electronics product is based on a configuration or ‘build'.
Core Benefits of CXInsight Configuration Management are:
- Configuration documentation and build management
- Revision management
- Change management
- Tools configuration management
Configuration Documentation and Build Management
Product development starts with the master design or ‘development baseline'. From this baseline the variants in different revisions develop into real products. Newly developed variants can become new variant baselines, but it depends on the individual development groups or company customs, if and how this is organized. It is evident that during the development and production of complex electronic products, configuration documentation and build management are crucial, specifically when this development involves multiple design teams and/or multiple production sites around the globe.
Revision and Change Management
At the end of a dynamic development period, in which a number of changes are made and revisions are completed, a first product configuration (the product baseline) will be released for production. During prototyping and NPI more modifications will be generated to make the product fit for mass production (DFx). Even during its active life a product develops due to progressing insight and field experience, ending in new revisions of the product to be produced. Change or ECR/ECO management and revision management are therefore key capabilities for professional configuration management.
Tools Configuration Management
The data sets used to develop and build electronic products are stored and archived in digital formats. Some industries require extensive warranty times and service obligations (10 years or more) and issues such as availability or reliability of components, progressing insight to the long term reliability of products or the need for production of function and form fit spare parts, can cause the need for redesign of an old product or product module.
However, the development of operating systems, applications and tools is very fast and can mean that in a relatively short space of time the vendors no longer support certain versions. Ultimately the downward compatibility stops, resulting in unreadable or unconvertible datasets (usually discovered at a very inconvenient moment). The removal of operating systems and applications is announced in advance, but locating the data sets in question among the hundreds or thousands of files in the archive can be problematic.
CXInsight's Tool Configuration Management solves this long-term problem by supplying a file labeling system that attaches all required tool, hardware and O.S. information to every single file. A search and retrieve function also makes it possible to quickly identify all endangered files when an exclusion warning is issued by a tool supplier.
CXInsight Configuration Management Capabilities (completed in V5.2):
- Complete Product Lifecycle Management (PLM for small to medium sized companies)
- Manage multiple product configurations and instances (variants)
- Baseline identification, monitoring, and retrieval
- Multiple BOM representations (variants)
- Configuration control and traceability
- Management of manufacturing feedback (e.g. DFx analysis results, WIP, serial or lot quality, serial traceability, FPY, DPMO, product birth certificate)
- Full user configurable product structure views (configuration views) and structure reports (configuration reports)
- Tools configuration management by file labeling system
- Release management support for common ERP systems
