Component Assembly with Barcode Parsing within SAP Digital Manufacturing

Introduction

In 23.08 Release, SAP Digital Manufacturing introduced Manage Barcode Settings app and updated Assemble Components plugin to support the Component Assembly process with 2d barcode parsing.

In this blog post, I will show you a short demo and in detail how to configure and use 2d Barcode parsing in Assemble Components plugin.

Demo

Configure

See below all pre-requisites and how to configure 2d Barcode parsing within SAP Digital Manufacturing.

Pre-requisites

As a pre-requisite, your user must have one of the following Roles assigned in BTP Cockpit:

• Production_Supervisor

• Production_Engineer

• Manufacturing_Admin

• Production_Operator

Create Data Fields

First, we need to create some Data Fields that will receive information parsed from the Barcode scan. For this example, in Manage Data Fields app, I created VENDOR, VENDOR_LOT and VENDOR_DATE_CODE fields of type Text as follows:

Create Data Type

Then, we must assign the created Data Fields to a Data Type of type Assembly, which can be done in Manage Data Types app as follows:

Assign Data Type to Components

Afterwards, the Data Type created must be then assigned to Data to Collect at Assembly for Component Material(s) in Manage Materials app at Build tab as follows:

Manage Barcode Settings

Once the Data Fields and Data Type setup is in place, we must create a ’06’ Data Format of type ISO15434 in Manage Barcode Settings app, where we will then map Data Qualifiers to the previously created Data Fields as follows:

In this case, Data Format ’06’ and Data Qualifiers are following ISO Standard 15434.

The configuration above should successfully parse a 2d Barcode like the example below:

[)><RS>06<GS>VACME<GS>17SACMECODE<GS>DACMEDATECODE<RS><EOT>

Note the formatting including the ’06’ Data Format and ‘V’, ’17S’ and ‘D’ Data Qualifiers.

POD Designer

Now it’s time to enable Barcodes for Assemble Components plugin in POD Designer. To do so, open your POD in POD Designer, select Assemble Components plugin and enable ‘Display Barcode’ option as follows:

Notice that in this example, we also use Assembly Mode as ‘Choose Auto Next’ and enabled ‘Auto Add On Tabout’ and ‘Independent Mode’, in order to have a better user experience. See more details below:

Choose Auto Next: The next nonassembled component by assembly sequence is automatically selected in the Component List during the assembly operation activity. The first component is selected by the user and then the system automatically goes to the next component based upon the assembly sequence in the BOM.

Auto Add On Tabout: If set to On, the component is automatically added after you tab out of the last text field.

Independent Mode: Default is OFF. If set to ON, when you select an SFC and an operation, you get all the required details in the Assemble Components screen, without any dependency on the Component List.

Display Barcode

On: The Barcode is displayed. As an operator, you can scan a 2D barcode into the Barcode field. The system will display assembly data parsed from the barcode.

Off: The Barcode field is not displayed.

Use

Now that all needed setup is in place, open your POD and navigate to Assemble Components plugin, which should show the ‘Barcode’ field and the Data Fields created and assigned to the Assembly Data Type and as Data to Collect on Assembly for the Component Material(s) under Assembly Data section as follows:

You can now scan a 2d Barcode in ‘Barcode’ field. If an ENTER or TAB OUT command is also sent by the Scanner, the 2d Barcode scanned into the ‘Barcode’ field will be automatically parsed, the parsed data will automatically fill the corresponding Data Fields and the Component will be automatically Assembled.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a scanner handy, you can Copy (CTRL+C) and Paste (CTRL+V) a 2d Barcode string like the example below into ‘Barcode’ field and press Enter or Tab keys to simulate a scanner behavior.

[)><RS>06<GS>VACME<GS>17SACMECODE<GS>DACMEDATECODE<RS><EOT>

Using this 2d barcode example should give you the result below, before automatically assemblying the Component:

Once assembled, notice that the focus is automatically returned to the ‘Barcode’ field so you can scan and assemble the next component automatically.

Data Collected via Data Fields during Component Assembly is stored for traceability purposes in the SFC As Built records.

Demo

Conclusion

2d Barcode parsing was introduced to SAP Digital Manufacturing in 23.08 Release, providing a very flexible but powerfull way to parse 2d barcodes and capture barcode data into the SFC As Built records.

Do you like this post? Please let me know in the comments section what you think. Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Or, if you have any questions, please check SAP Community Q&A Area, or comment down below.

Thanks,

Manoel Costa