Component overview

A component is a reusable part of a product. Products and components are nearly identical, but components are specifically designed to be used within other products.

The most common characteristics of a component are:

• It only exists as a part of other products.
• It's only used internally in your own company.
• It's never sold separately.

If your component doesn't meet these criteria, it should probably be a product.

An example of this is a seat that is part of multiple different armchairs, but never sold separately.

Benefits of using components

The biggest benefit of using components is that they provide a clear distinction between:

• Products that you sell to customers (with SKUs)
• Components that you only use internally as parts of your other products

They still provide the same reusability: In the armchair example above, one change to a seat would update the LCA for all the armchairs and sofas that include the seat.

Components and reporting

Since the Component entity is intended for internal use only, it cannot have individual reporting, such as an EPD, on its own.

Requesting a component

If your manufacturing process involves ordering components from a supplier connected to EandoX, you can import their supplier product data to your library.

This has multiple benefits:

• You will get accurate LCA's without needing to request sensitive data from suppliers about their manufacturing processes.
• The manufacturing data for your supplier products will always be accurate and up to date.
• Whenever your suppliers change their manufacturing process, the data will be automatically reflected in your products. This eliminates the need for manual updates or frequent follow-ups.

If a supplier is not connected to EandoX, you can invite them and request the supplier products you need.

Further reading

Read more about how to subscribe to an EandoX supplier and their products here.

Read more about how to invite suppliers to EandoX here.

Read more about how to request a supplier product here.

Read more about how to add a supplier product to your library here.

Component versioning

Component entities in EandoX are versioned to allow for changes in your manufacturing process or supply chain.

A component can have two states: Draft and Published.

Saving a component only saves it as a draft. Publishing a component creates a new version of it, and saves the current data as a "snapshot".

Changing the data and only saving it (without a publish) will only affect the draft version of the component. The published version will be unchanged.