Published on Mar 11, 2019
Last updated on May 28, 2020
3 min read
Accessories
Part A being an accessory for Part B means, that if Part B is used somewhere in a harness, then Part A might (or must) be used as well. These can be for example backshells, connector housing locks, clips, cable ties. In the VEC, any part classification can be an accessory to another part. A relation between PartVersion and its accessories can be established with a PartRelation in a GeneralTechnicalPartSpecification
Unclassified Parts
The natural language term “accessory” sums up a vast amount of different part types that are used in a harness, but which are not further specified. Meaning that they are relevant for the bill of material (and some other general properties like weight), but their usage is not defined in detail. If a part has to be used in the VEC, that has no individual specification (like e.g. a ConnectorHousingSpecification) it is marked with the PartVersion.primaryPartType="Other” and a PartOrUsageRelatedSpecification that can be used to define which type of “accessory” it is (via the attribute PartOrUsageRelatedSpecification.specialPartType). Common part attributes can be defined with a GeneralTechnicalPartSpecification.
Example
The following table shows examples for the usage of a PartRelation and the corresponding semantic meanings.
#
Example
Meaning
In numbers
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
<PartRelationid="id_1"><RelationType>Mandatory</RelationType><AccessoryPart>A A A</AccessoryPart></PartRelation><PartRelationid="id_2"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>A A A</AccessoryPart></PartRelation>
The part A has to be used exactly 3 times or exactly 6 times.
<PartRelationid="id_4"><RelationType>Mandatory</RelationType><AccessoryPart>C C C</AccessoryPart></PartRelation>
The part C has to be used exactly 3 times. This is semantically equivalent with example #3.
3 x C
5
1
2
3
4
<PartRelationid="id_7"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>D E F</AccessoryPart></PartRelation>
The parts D & E & F have to be used exactly 1 times or 0 times.
0..1 x (D,E,F)
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
<PartRelationid="id_8"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>G G G</AccessoryPart></PartRelation><PartRelationid="id_9"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>G G</AccessoryPart></PartRelation>
The part G have to be used exactly 0 times or 2, 3, 5 times.
(0,2,3,5) x G
7
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
<PartRelationid="id_10"><RelationType>Mandatory</RelationType><AccessoryPart>K K K</AccessoryPart></PartRelation><PartRelationid="id_11"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>K</AccessoryPart></PartRelation><PartRelationid="id_12"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>K</AccessoryPart></PartRelation><PartRelationid="id_13"><RelationType>Optional</RelationType><AccessoryPart>K</AccessoryPart></PartRelation>