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What happens when an engineer changes a design

Design changes are a normal part of manufacturing, not an emergency. Family versioning and configuration freezing ensure that already released orders don't subtly change underfoot.

One of the most dangerous points in any manufacturing system is when an engineer changes a product design, and an order for a previous version is already being processed somewhere on the shop floor. Without a clear version model, this can lead either to an accidental change to an already launched order, or to losing the ability to make improvements at all.

Three protection mechanisms

  1. Family versions. A significant design change creates a new Engineering Family version, rather than editing an existing one. The previous version remains available for everything that already references it.
  2. Configuration Freeze. Once a specific configuration is fixed (frozen), it no longer changes even if the family gets a new version — see Configurations and Product Variants.
  3. BOM release as a snapshot. A Manufacturing BOM (MBOM) released for a specific order is a snapshot of the state at the time of release, not a live link to the "current" design.

What the engineer sees after a change

When an engineer creates a new family version or a new configuration, the system allows comparing two BOM versions (BOM Diff) — to see which items have been added, removed, or changed. This enables a conscious assessment of whether the change should be applied to already planned but not yet released orders.

Practical scenario

Imagine: an engineer discovers that a certain type of edge banding is no longer supplied and changes the material in a new family version. Orders that already have a frozen configuration and a released Manufacturing BOM (MBOM) continue to use the old edge banding without any additional actions — they simply "don't see" the change. New configurations created after the update automatically receive the new version.

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