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Does anyone dare use BOM's for real work?

I'm getting more and more disillusioned with the SWX BOM functionality.

Does anyone feel that they can produce an accurate, reliable BOM with ballooning from a multi-level assembly (shown as "parts only" in the BOM properties), where some components are "excluded from BOM"?

At my latest attempt, I noticed that on one of the views the balloon numbers looked suspect, because I have fasteners at the end of the BOM, so their item numbers should be the highest. Now, before anyone asks, the view properties WERE set to "keep linked to BOM". Some of the balloons showed the correct item numbers, but some didn't. If I clicked on a correct one, the Feature Manager displayed a field indicating the current item number. If I selected an incorrectly-numbered one, the Feature Manager did not show this field - don't know what this means, it's just an observation.

The way to fix this (yep...a workaround!), was to switch the view so as not to be linked to the BOM, select OK, then switch it back again. All the item numbers were now correct. Now if I hadn't noticed this, it could have resulted in a customer opening their machine manual, and ordering the wrong replacement part from us - not good for your reputation.

Next problem. I changed a component in a sub-assembly that was previously shown in the BOM to be excluded from the BOM. This is correctly indicated if I look at the component properties in the top level assy. However, the BOM in the drawing still shows this component!!!!! WHY???? If I create a new BOM and place it next to the first one, it does not show the item, but the original BOM still does. WTF!!

Is there some other manual over-ride that could be set that would allow this to happen?

I'm on 2007sp5.0

TIA John H

Reply to
John H
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Inventor does the same thing, The BOM is not updated till you replace it.

Reply to
sycochkn

"sycochkn" wrote

I don't know about Inventor, but SWX normally updates the BOM in line with any changes you made to the assembly.

John H

Reply to
John H

BOM is not updated till you replace it.

Not very automaticly, you have to run rebuild/forced rebuild, reopen the drawing... or even replace the BOM with a new one to update. For the new BOM only the last 2 options seem to work for me.

regards Markku

Reply to
Markku Lehtola

I've used both IV and SWX and found that while SWX is much better about keeping the BOM up to date, it doesn't do so 100% of the time. Therefore, I check it whenever I restructure the assembly in any way (addition, substitution, rearrangement, deletion). Fortunately (I guess), I was already in the habit of doing this because of my years of IV experience.

FWIW, we use the Excel BOM functionality in SWX, which seems to be more reliable in this regard.

Regards, John.

Reply to
the_tool_man

Don't you mean it sometimes does?

I think BOM's along with a few other areas, like mirrored subassy's, must be relegated to near or total abandonment. Organizationally, I suppose the suckups ...er.... best and brightest work on the latest gimmickware, and the almost out the door folks are assigned to fixing the 8 year old bug issues.

Reply to
bill allemann

The BOM function has deterioted quite a bit over the last couple releases. If you don't use component configurations, you can probably get by with it.

It seems like there is something wrong with the assembly file more than the bom itself. If you have several instances of the same component, but more than one configuration, swx will hose this up for you before long. Sometimes in the middle of a session for no apparent reason, swx will stop showing the different configs as separate items. It lumps all configs as one item, no matter what the table config says, and you cannot unfudge it. With all the time wasted fighting the BOM and balloon numbers, I'm pretty sure it would be a productivity improvement to type out the BOM on an independent xls document, and put in your balloons with text input (just like in 1992).

Reply to
bill allemann

Hide quoted text -

Where I work (and my previous two jobs too), we do not allow BOMs on drawings at all. This information is controlled by the PLM (un- Agile). I used to be leery of this method, but now that I've been using it for 20 years, I consider it superior to keeping BOMs on drawings.

Matt Lorono

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Reply to
fcsuper

"bill allemann" wrote

That's really disappointing to hear. I've "only" been using SWX for just over 2 years, and it's only fairly recently that I've been doing drg's and BOM's of large assemblies. I'd hoped there were some nice workarounds to be found, or a few simple things to avoid that might make it work reliably - sounds like there aren't.

I used to use I-DEAS in my last job, and the BOM's were absolutely bullet-proof - AND you could produce them direct from the assembly too. In fact, everything about I-DEAS was industrial-strength. Some areas of it were hard to learn (but not necessarily hard to use) and it lacked functionality in a few key areas (but excelled in others), but whatever it did do was at least completely dependable.

I truly feel SWX is the Windows98 of CAD systems - seems like it ticks most of the boxes, until you need to use it day in, day out and then you realise what an unreliable POS it is. Sadly, the job I'm moving to shortly uses either 2D Autocad or....take a deep breath......SWX. They haven't rolled SWX out widely yet, so perhaps there's time to change their minds!

John H

John H

Reply to
John H

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