plmLab

PLM Core

Planned

Option and Variant

Modeling product variability without exploding the part catalog or breaking BOM reuse across configurations.

Why this matters

Option and variant management is what separates a product family from a list of similar products. Done well, it preserves reuse at the BOM level.

What this page will cover

  • Modeling variability with options vs. variants vs. expressions
  • Rules and constraints
  • Validation across configurations
  • The "explode the catalog" failure mode