Design Modifications

The system identifies the impact of changes to design objects only, based on their option or module code expressions.

You can identify which child designs are impacted when the following interactions are performed in a composite design:

• Single or multiple modifications are applied to an open composite design.

• Modifications exist in another revision of the composite design.

• Objects are selected in an open composite design (the system locates the child designs that contain those objects).

Note

Graphical changes on the diagram, such as moving decorations or bundle manipulation (except changes to the bundle length, structure nodes, or clocking) are ignored by Impacted Child Design Management.

You can compare differences between composite designs and then choose which child designs to revise on the Change Impact - Design Compare tab, and select design objects on the Change Impact - Interactive tab to identify the impact to any associated child design prior to applying a modification.

Figure 20: Example Design Modifications and Impacted Child Designs

The design objects displayed on the Change Impact

• Interactive / Design Compare Tab are a guide to which object modifications impact which designs and must not be considered differences as a results of comparing two designs. See “Comparing Objects and Their Properties in Design Revisions or Build Lists” in the Capital Design Tools - Common Functions User Guide to identify the differences between objects in two designs.

Restrictions and Limitations

• The Interactive and Design Compare actions may display the same modifications in a different way in the object columns; however, the design data is the same and will not affect which objects are updated during composite breakdown.

• If you modify object tags (option or module expression), certain designs are not marked as impacted although the breakdown result will be different because codes tagged to objects are always copied to the child designs. For example, if you change an object tag such that the object is no longer in the first of two child designs (both of which it was initially in), only this first harness is impacted. However, the second design also changes after breakdown because the object’s updated tag has been copied from the parent composite design.

• If you tag symbols placed directly on the diagram at design-level with option expressions, those symbols are ignored as they are not considered physical objects.

Impact

to Child Designs and Harnesses

The Change Impact - Design Compare action identifies modifications between designs that will impact the design data in the child designs. However, not all changes to composite designs will impact the physical harnesses or modules when they are manufactured.

Modifications to a composite design have no (immediate) impact on physical harnesses or modules, it is only when you run Harness Processing (composite breakdown) that those modifications are propagated to the harness designs.

Note

Depending on the options selected during Harness Processing, the number of updated child designs after composite breakdown might be different from the number of impacted child designs identified on the Change Impact

• Interactive / Design Compare Tab.

The Change Impact - Design Compare tab displays all the potentially impacted child designs (which might be more than the updated designs after running Harness Processing), to enable you to identify and revise the child designs, if required, to ensure that no updates are missed.

You can specify the following Harness Processing options, to ensure that the number of updated physical harnesses or modules is comparable to the number of identified impacted child designs (except for design modifications that have no physical impact, see Table 3):

• Both derivative and modular breakdowns are activated.

• Child design engineering calculations are activated.

• All existing child designs are selected.

• All breakdown options are cleared (no merge) – except for the “Terminals/Seals Stay With Wires (not Connectors)” option which must be selected. Note If merges occur during composite breakdown, the system will report more impacted designs than there actually are.

Restriction The modular breakdown flow where terminals and seals go with connectors is not supported. The system will not report the module designs containing the connectors, if the “Terminals/Seals Stay With Wires (not Connectors)” option is cleared.

• All engineering options are selected: The system assumes maximum impact to ensure no child design is missed. For example, a bundle length modification will impact child designs which contain wires present in the bundle, as the system assumes that wire length calculation is executed during processing.

See the following examples of when design modifications impact the child design or the physical harness or module.

Change to	Impact on Child Design	Impact on Physical Harness or Module	Explanation
Empty bundle	Yes	No	An empty bundle is a type of constraint, not a physical object.
Non-empty bundle length (including variant)	Yes	Yes	Wire length calculation occurs during Harness Processing, changing the harness or module which contains the wires in the bundle.
Tag (module or option expression)	Yes	Not always	Tags are copied in child designs during breakdown but the system ignores differences in tags.
Modular only: Attribute other than part number for a connector with no module expression (a reference connector in all child designs)	Yes	No	The connector is not physically present in the module and changes to this connector do not affect any other physical component.
Modular only: Part number of a reference connector	Yes	Possibly	Terminal selection occurs during Harness Processing, possibly changing the module which contains the wires going to the connector.

Impact

to Bundles and Nodes

Bundles and nodes are topological objects, and cannot be described as physical objects in the same way as design objects such as, wires, connectors, and clips, and therefore only impact the physical harnesses or modules for certain changes.

• Bundles A bundle change only affects the physical harness or module if it potentially changes wire length (when the child design is processed). Therefore, only bundle length and variant length attributes are considered.

All other attributes (including name) are ignored.

• Reference nodes A reference node change only has an impact if there is a physical component at this node. If the node is modified, the system considers that the component has changed and only identifies the impact of the component.

• Structure nodes A junction node is considered a physical object (for example, it may impact wire length).

A structure node change only has an impact if it affects design data, in which case all wires touching this node are considered impacted. For example, a change of bundle junction sequence.

Parent Topic:

Impacted Child Design Management Overview

Capital Harness Designer User Guide, 2512

Unpublished work. © 2025 Siemens