Teamcenter Engineering On-Demand Synchronization Mark Brueggeman General Motors Information Systems & Services
Download ReportTranscript Teamcenter Engineering On-Demand Synchronization Mark Brueggeman General Motors Information Systems & Services
Teamcenter Engineering On-Demand Synchronization
Mark Brueggeman General Motors Information Systems & Services [email protected]
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On-Demand Synchronization Introduction
On-Demand Multi-Site Synchronization was developed to address the difficulties in synchronizing large, complex structures across a global Teamcenter Engineering implementation.
On-Demand Sync is a joint GM-Siemens development project that provides a "data pull" synchronization paradigm.
On-Demand Sync is intended to complement, not replace, the existing "push" Multi-Site synchronization functionality.
On-Demand Synchronization was first delivered to GM in Teamcenter Engineering 9.1.3 and is available in core TcEng. (The functionality described here is all available as of TC2007.1 MP3.) This presentation provides an overview of On-Demand Sync functionality and GM's experience to date with this tool.
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General Motors Teamcenter Engineering Multi-Site Implementation
Honeoye Falls Oshawa Warren (JCI) Pontiac (3) Warren (2) Warren ODS Torrance Toluca Millbrook Strasbourg Torino Torino (Fiat) Trollhättan Burscheid (JCI) Rüsselsheim Graz (MagnaSteyr) Fulda (EDAG) Bangalore Sao Paulo Port Elizabeth Melbourne 20 GM Sites.
10 Supplier and Joint Venture Partner Sites.
1 ODS.
Up to 60 concurrent vehicle development programs.
Yellow border indicates Supplier or JV site.
Fujisawa (GMIDEL) Fujisawa (Isuzu) Fujisawa (LPEC) Hamamatsu (Suzuki) Bupyong Shanghai Shanghai (PATAC)
Synchronization Challenges
A GM Vehicle Assembly Structure is large and complex.
Over 100,000 BOMLines Over 10,000 Unique Items Over 12 levels deep.
Upper four levels are Imprecise All lower levels are Precise Some Item Revisions contain over 10,000 objects, typically Variant Expressions and Appearance Path Nodes.
Most structures contain Items owned by ten or more Sites.
Virtually all GM global development programs today are global.
Global programs typically involve up to six engineering centers, each center requires the entire vehicle structure to be complete and in sync at their site.
GM engineering centers exist on six continents, in nine different time zones.
The Problems with Synchronization
The limitations of data_sync: data_sync relies on Export Records, which are not always reliable.
data_sync synchronizes all objects of a given class, without regard to assembly context.
Failure of a single Item to synchronize may cause all subsequent Items in the same job to fail.
Latency of synchronization: Synchronization is typically performed as a scheduled job.
Scheduling a sync job must compromise between the working hours of the sending and receiving site.
Each sync job typically takes several hours to complete.
Increasing data complexity: Extensions to the TcEng data model increase the data_sync workload.
data_sync wrapper scripts must be increasingly complex to keep up with data complexity .
Result: End users have poor confidence in the integrity of replicated data.
Failed Assembly Synchronization Strategies
Increased data_sync frequency:
Execute two or more syncs per day.
Increases the probability that syncs will overlap.
Does not address the issue of syncs that fail to complete.
BOM Comparison:
them.
Generate Bills of Material at different sites and compare Requires significant time and resources to execute.
Normal data_sync latency, combined with the time required to generate BOMs, quickly makes comparisons invalid unless the structure is static.
A single mismatch at a high level assembly creates hundreds or thousands of mismatches at lower levels.
If two sites both have the same out of date version of a component owned by a third site, the comparison will indicate that the sites are in sync.
Component push:
Evaluate the BOM at each site to find locally-owned components that are missing at other sites and push them to those sites.
Requires significant time and resources to execute.
Only addresses components owned by sites that have the entire BOM.
On-Demand Synchronization Solution Approach
Assumptions: Export Records are not a reliable indicator of synchronization state. Only comparison of the "last modified" date of the replica with the master can be trusted.
Only the Owning Site of an object can be trusted to provide the state of the object.
Synchronization of assemblies requires application of identical Revision Rules at each site.
Two objects are considered to be in sync if the answer to this question is "no": "If this object is re-imported, will anything change?" Requirements: Provide a means to determine the synchronization state of a replica by comparison with its master.
Provide a means to perform a "pull" synchronization of an object.
Must support synchronization of individual Items as well as entire assemblies.
Functionality is required in both the Portal interface as well as the command line.
On-Demand Synchronization Functionality
Interfaces: Portal (Rich Application Client) User Interface Command-Line "sync_on_demand" Utility Supports Objects, Components, Assemblies Lists of Workspace Objects may be processed.
Functions: Navigator Object : checks the synchronization state of a single Workspace Object) Component : checks the synchronization state of a single Item or Item Revision and its associated objects.
PSE Assembly : checks the synchronization state of an assembly and its components, to a specified depth.
Report : Generates a synchronization report.
Sync : Synchronizes out-of-sync objects without generating a report.
On-Demand Synchronization Navigator User Interface
Select "Object" to synchronize a specific object.
Select "Component" to synchronize an Item or Item Revision.
On-Demand Synchronization Navigator User Interface
Included relations are specified on the "Advanced" tab.
On-Demand Synchronization Navigator User Interface
On-Demand Synchronization Synchronization Status
Replica is in sync with Master.
Object is missing at replicating site.
Replica object exists but has an older last-modified date than the Master.
There is a newer revision of the component that satisfies the Revision Rule. (only applies to assemblies) Object is in sync with replica at a Hub.
Replica date last modified is later than the master. May be due to a remote checkout of the object.
Synchronization could not be determined.
Owning Site offline.
Owning Site could not be determined.
Specified Revision Rule doesn't exist at Owning Site.
Master or replica object is not readable.
Local site is not an "IDSM permitted" site for the Owning Site.
On-Demand Synchronization Product Structure Editor Interface
Synchronization is invoked by right-clicking the assembly to be synchronized.
On-Demand Synchronization Product Structure Editor Interface
On-Demand Synchronization Product Structure Editor Interface
sync_on_demand Command-Line Utility
sync_on_demand [-u=
Can be run in either "report" or "sync" mode.
Supports objects, components and assemblies.
Can take Items, Item Revisions or lists of Workspace Objects as targets.
sync_on_demand Synchronization Report
This is an assembly report. Component reports are similar, but include detailed information about the objects associated with the component Item.
Synchronizing Replica Objects
Out-of-sync replicas can be synchronized by running Synchronization in "sync" mode. However, there are some limitations to sync mode: There is limited feedback as to which objects require synchronization.
Synchronization of assemblies is effectively the same thing as Remote Import using the "Include Entire BOM", "Modified Only" and "Include Distributed Components" options. This makes it impractical for use on very large assemblies.
The "sync" mode relies on Export Records (due to the "modified only" import behavior; consequently objects that are reported to be out-of-sync in "report" mode may not be imported in "sync" mode.
There are alternate ways to synchronize out-of-sync objects, using "report" mode: In the Portal interface, users may select objects from the Sync Report and import them using Remote Import. This is available both in Navigator and PSE.
To satisfy GM's requirements for command-line functionality, Siemens has enhanced the sync_on_demand and data_share utilities to so that they can be used together to identify and import missing or out-of-sync objects. A "uid_report" option was added to sync_on_demand. This option creates a Synchronization report that includes the tags of all objects in the report.
A "-f=ri" (remote import) option was added to data_share. This mode will import remote objects specified in a list of tags.
A "-selected_revision" revision selector was later added to data_share in order to import specific revisions. (This revision selector is only useful in the "remote_import" mode.)
Scripted Synchronization Using the sync_on_demand and data_share Utilities
sync_on_demand is executed in report mode to generate a UID report. For example, for an assembly:
sync_on_demand -f=report -item_id=9988 -rev_rule="Latest Released then wip" -er=IMAN_reference -uid_report=9988_uid.txt
A list of tags for missing or out-of-sync objects is extracted from the UID report. The Owning Site for each tag must also be extracted from the report. This is typically done using a Perl script or UNIX shell script.
data_share is executed in "remote import" mode to import the objects associated with the list of tags:
data_share -f=ri -filename=taglist.txt -classoffile=Tagstring latest_ds_version -exclude=IMAN_reference -site=Site_A
If the target object is an Item or Item Revision, then a revision selector may be used. However, it is typically not easy to determine which revision selector is appropriate. One solution is to execute data_share with different revision selectors until the import is successful. e.g. "selected_revision", then "latest_released", the "latest_working".
Since both the Owning Site and revision selector must be specified, it is usually necessary to create multiple lists each containing a single tag, then execute data_share repeatedly to import each object.
sync_on_demand UID Report
ON DEMAND SYNCHRONIZATION REPORT - ASSEMBLY 2008-05-01 17:00:39 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- Component Owning site Sync State Replica LMD Master LMD --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- AHD69710/001-VPPS_50 BODY STRUCTURE (view)[CM70xVyTAfcCdC] GMTG_Production 11:54:44 2005-01-31 11:54:44 2005-01-31 2007-11-19 AHD69742/010-VPPS_50.1 BODY LOWER STRUCTURE (view)[CAz0xVyTAfcCdC] GMTG_Production 14:11:06 2007-11-19 14:11:06 TL128262/013-IA-UNDERBODY ASM_11-MM (view)[SNAZ5bENAfcCdC] GMTG_Production 07:20:46 2007-11-20 07:20:46 [SNAZ5bENAfcCdC] 15010271/012-REINFORCEMENT-FLOOR PNL[wm78RDKlAfcCdC] GMTG_Production 19:46:21 2005-03-18 19:46:21 2007-11-20 2005-03-18 11517438/000-STUD - METRIC TYPE TUS3 PROJECTI[AKxF2zxxQyYmUC] SCG001 04:08:01 2004-08-03 04:08:01 11517438/000-STUD - METRIC TYPE TUS3 PROJECTI[AKxF2zxxQyYmUC] SCG001 04:08:01 2004-08-03 04:08:01 11517438/000-STUD - METRIC TYPE TUS3 PROJECTI[AKxF2zxxQyYmUC] SCG001 04:08:01 2004-08-03 04:08:01 15017234/005-REINFORCEMENT - BODY MOUNT REAR (view)[1QwweMbVAfcCdC] GMTG_Production 05 2004-08-03 2004-08-03 2004-08-03 2006-04 The tagstring for each object in the report, including "Remote" objects, is listed. These tagstrings may be used with data_share to remote import the missing or out-of-sync objects.
On-Demand Sync Configuration
Revision Rules A common Revision Rule must be defined at all sites, using the same name and same definition.
GM uses a Revision Rule called "Latest Released then wip"; this rule will always configure:
Precise Has Status( Any Release Status, Configured Using Released Date ) Working( )
Preferences
TC_sync_revision_rules
defines which Revision Rules are available in the Synchronization Preferences dialog.
TC_follow_ownership_chain_max_site_count
performance.
determines the maximum number of sites On-Demand Sync will check when tracking down the owning site of an object. Set this to "2" for best
TC_sync_on_demand_broadcast_mode
Demand Sync will poll all sites to find the owning site of an object. Set this to "FALSE" for performance.
determines if the On-
Results to Date at General Motors
GM has been using On-Demand Sync in production for the past year. The current production version (Teamcenter Automotive Edition 9.1.3.6u) addresses the performance issues discovered in earlier releases.
On-Demand Sync has proven very useful in detecting and diagnosing synchronization issues.
Using GM-developed wrapper scripts around sync_on_demand and data_share, on-demand sync is run on a regular basis against several major vehicle assembly structures. This process has nearly eliminated synchronization issues with those structures.
Import of missing components is now automated for the majority of Items.
Synchronization issues are now clearly visible.
Assemblies can be synchronized immediately prior to virtual reviews. This is a point in time when synchronization is most critical, but difficult to achieve due to last-minute revisions and releases.
BOM expansion performance is currently an issue for large assemblies. Siemens is working to improve BOM expansion performance.
On-Demand Sync will be run as nightly jobs to prepare each assembly prior to running Global Repeatable Digital Validation Automation (GRDVA) maintenance activities.