The Natrium Engine tracks groups of parts by
letting users define the relationships between
parts. Users create definitions for configurations
and parts. These are joined together to form a
rule for parts in configurations. When a part is
removed from or added to a configuration, all
children of that part are also transferred. This
has special applications to "living" inventory, or
groups of disparate parts that need to be tracked
as a group rather than individually. For example,
if a carburetor is made a separate configuration
from an engine, then when removing it all parts
associated with the carburetor are also removed. A
facility is provided for tracking user-defined
line-item costs of each part.
