Product Hierarchy

Objective: To explain the philosophy and structure behind Duro's product hierarchy schema.

Difficulty: Easy

In this article:

1. Overview of structure
2. Products vs Assemblies
3. Other criteria
4. More Resources

Overview of structure

Products represent the highest level of finished goods sold directly to customers. All products belong to the same top-level category, and cannot be nested below another product. By default, Duro’s product schema has a prefix of 999, although this can be customized to fit each company’s requirements. Assemblies represent complex and multi-component objects that can be used to build products or feed into other assemblies. Both products and assemblies contain reference information to their constituent components, but products contain additional information regarding ownership and build scheduling.

Products vs Assemblies

Choosing between designating an item as a product or an assembly is an important choice when developing BOMs. Each offers different strengths but is ultimately the choice of the user.

One of the greatest advantages of using products is that product pages contain designated tiles listing responsible team members and build schedules, ensuring clear ownership and accountability. This acts as a hub for information, keeping everyone aligned on the project scope and development schedule. Assemblies, on the other hand, excel at flexibility. Their nestable structure lets users easily reuse existing structures to adjust and iterate during early development and prototype stages. They also encourage modular design, as any assembly can be utilized for as many products as required.

Understanding these strengths gives users the power to choose the right tool for the job. We recommend that Duronauts start with assemblies to build their core structures and reusable elements, then transition to products when the design needs clear ownership and structured development. Assemblies remain valuable for managing revisions and modifications throughout the product's life. Ultimately, we encourage users to use the strategy that works best for their company. 

Other criteria

Although documents can be uploaded into Duro as components, none of the prefixes within the document category impact the product hierarchy. Documents are only linked to the component, assembly, or product level to which it is associated and have no bearing on the product’s hierarchy. 

Similarly, Documentation Change Orders (DCOs) do not roll revisions, and files uploaded as a result do not impact the revision or lifecycle values of the item to which it is uploaded. 

More Resources

Please reference our article on Categories for more information on what options are available.

Do you have feature requests related to product hierarchy? Feel free to post a comment in the Duro Community for other users to have the opportunity to vote on which feature requests your team will also benefit from.