Amazon.com description: Product Description: Modelling products and the relationships between products i.e. product structures is the main theme of this volume. Product variety has grown tremendously over the past decade due to the ever growing complexity of product structures. The problem of representing product structures when product variety is extremely large is examined in detail. The subject is reviewed from an information systems aspect, taking into account the needs of the designer. Shortcomings of existing concepts and techniques are carefully analysed and described, a set of basic requirements is formulated and alternative concepts are developed. The book can be divided into three parts. The first part gives insight into the commonly applied techniques for representing product structures by bills-of-material. The second part introduces a framework for a new generation of bill-of-material processing systems which are particularly suitable for supporting production environments characterized by large product variety. The third part introduces a new set of concepts for representing product structures in bill-of-material processing systems. The book is intended for research institutes and software developers in the areas of production control, information systems and/or engineering data management. It will also be of great value for post-graduate students and companies' specialists in these areas. In particular the first six chapters of the book will also be suitable for a much wider audience of people who want to get a better understanding of the basics of the bill-of-material concept.