Tip of the month
Tip of the month - circular references
Some major religions believe in reincarnation, and though I'm not going to enter the debate here, there is a bit of a similarity between this and the possible circular reference problem which could occur in a poorly validated software product. With the bill of material tree structure having a few similarities with a family tree (the only difference being a family tree has two parents) it is impossible to have a child be a parent of its own parent, grandparent etc (unless you believe in reincarnation).
The same can occur when constructing a bill of materials, you can select a child part which is actually used further up in the assembly in the direct ancestry line. When adding a part into a bill of material software product like ROBO Bill of Materials, a check is made on all the ancestors for that part to avoid the circular reference problem occurring. Please revisit this webpage next month for more great tips.
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