Assigning a material in Windchill

Use MI Materials Gateway to assign materials to parts and product structures in Windchill. The material assigned to the part includes a consistent, traceable link back to the source record in the Granta database.

Note: In an integrated Creo/Windchill environment, assignments made in Creo Parametric may be available in Windchill, and assignments made in Windchill may be available in Creo Parametric, depending on your system configuration. For details of how assignments are shared between Windchill and Creo Parametric in your system, see your Granta MI administrator.
  1. Right-click in your Windchill browser to view a product, library, folder, or part in MI Materials Gateway.
  2. To check out a part, right-click it in the assignments panel (the lower half of the MI Materials Gateway window) and select Check out.
    Tip: To skip this step, select the option Automatically check out parts before modification in your Settings.
  3. Make sure that the parts you want to assign to are selected in the assignments panel.
  4. In the upper half of the MI Materials Gateway window, find a material to assign.
  5. Double-click the material to assign it.
    Tip: If alternate assignments are enabled, you can right-click and select Assign as new alternate to add it to the material library instead. See Assigning alternate materials.
  6. When you have finished making assignments, right-click and select Check in to check the parts in to Windchill.
    Tip: To skip this step, you can select the option Automatically check in parts after modification in your Settings. (If you are making multiple assignments to a part, be aware that the part will be checked in automatically after each assignment.)

The material is created in Windchill as a data object (if it does not already exist), and is linked to the Windchill part object. Note that:

  • Assigning a material causes an iteration in the Windchill part.
  • If you are in a version-controlled Granta MI system, updating an out-of-date material assignment causes a revision in the Windchill data object, and an iteration in the part.
If your MI Materials Gateway system is configured to synchronize assignments from Windchill to Creo, the assignment will be updated on the corresponding Creo part model either when the part is opened in Creo Parametric, or when it is viewed in MI Materials Gateway for Creo (depending on your system configuration).
Important: Synchronization of assignments from Windchill to Creo is not supported when Creo is configured to assign materials to bodies. When opening a part in Creo that may contain assignments that were made in Windchill, you must ensure that assignment to bodies is disabled. See Assigning a material in Creo.