Using Process Results in Another Process

1. From the menu bar, select Insert > Feed by Another Process.

2. Select the main process node of the process to be fed.

3. In the second open process document, select an activity to which results must be fed.

Note that for the results to be properly fed, the first process (i.e., the one being fed) must have been run through Process Verification. Therefore, use this functionality only in conjunction with another DPM-based application.

A Typical Scenario

In a typical scenario, one process document could be related to Station1, and another to Station2. In the document for Station1, a product is imported into the ProductList of the PPR Tree. This product is comprised of parts A, B, C, D and E.

Setting the Proper Options

The process library used in both cases has LoadOperation type activities. When this library was created, the properties dialog on this operation type was opened and the Associated operator is set to Union, as shown below:

The Union operator will allow Process Verification to calculate results of Operations by taking the total of what comes in and what is assigned.

Creating and Sequencing Activities Prior to Verification

In the first process document, three activities are created and sequenced. To the first operation, we assign Part A to the second operation, we assign Part B, to the third, we assign Part C.

As the verification runs, it internally calculates the output of the first operation as being A, the output of the second operation as being A+B, and the output of the third operation as being A+B+C. These results are also internally stored on the top node operation (which is hidden to the user). 

• Note: 
  If the operation had the DEFAULT operator, then the result of first operation would have been A, the result of the second would have been B, and the result of the third operation would have been C.

If the first process document only contains these three operations, then he overall process result is A+B+C.

Feeding Station 2 with the Results from Station 1

In this example scenario, the work to be done on Station2 is the continuation of the work done on Station1. This means that Station2 will work on top of the results of Station1, and add to that result. This is the intent of the Feed By Another Process functionality.

In the Station2 process document, the same product needs to be imported in the ProductList, then an operation can be created. Results can be fed to any new operation in that document. (However, before this is done, the user must make sure that process verification has been run on the process for Station1). 

Select the operation, and then the top process node in the first process. The results of the Station1 process will appear under the item node of the operation.

In Conclusion

This scenario is a simplified example with only two stations. Consider that there are over 70 such stations in assembling/welding a car. Having 70 processes in a V5 session is excessive, therefore this capability allows a Process Engineer to open Stations 69 and 70 and understand exactly what parts have been assembled previously.

Feed by Another Process when V5 is used in a PPR Hub context

When a process feeds its output into another process, a product flow link is established between the two. The output from former process is imported into Process and Resource Definition as Input Items to the next process, and is displayed in the Input Items folder of the PPR Tree. 

In V5, the user can query the source process that provided the fed items to the current activity. The fed product data will be loaded and visualized when a target (fed) process is imported from PPR Hub into V5. The fed product data is loaded despite the fact that the source (feeder) process is not imported into V5.

When performing Process Verification of the target (fed) process, the fed product data is properly taken into account. The internal "Result calculation" function will correctly generate an Output for the activity which has an incoming feed link.