PDM Problem with paper prints

Hi Kelnerp -

The old what to do about legacy data when using a vault?

The short answer -> "nothing". Personally I have this same problem at my exising job where we have legacy data in paper, versacad 2d, autocad2d & solidworks. As long as the part print is viable and does not call for revison, it does not matter if it is desinged on stone tablets written in cuneiform, it's still a viable part print until it's revisioned, so it can continue to do its job until you need to revision it.

Sounds perfectly viable to me. Perhabis a bit of inheritance from the

Absolutely correct from my point of view. It does not make any sense to do any of the coversions, if ever, unless you are changing the part. Now there is the question of is it more labor to jockey paper or convert/scan prints in, but that's another question.

This is so common with cad to PDM/MRP. Usually its a brute force thing to "jam" the BOM into the "other system". The systems are really disconnected and it's a common problem.

Anyone who works for a company with PDM & MRP that has been in business for more than about 5 minutes has this problem. The trouble is that usually, cross system integration is an afterthought or the system one has presently does not even have a reasonable way to migrate data from one to the other. It is sad, but very common -

You're not alone here.

Regards-

SMA

kellnerp wrote in message news:...

Kellnerp,

Actually this has been a hot topic of conversation as of late within my company. We have a very similar situation. Hundreds of hand drawings, several thousand dwg's, and now recently SolidWorks data. We have an ERP system (Avante by Epicor) where we manually construct the BOM's for all our products. Our assembly drawings do contain BOM's as well. Just lately there has been a proposal to actually not display BOM's on drawings but use a printout from ERP system as the official BOM as this would conserve on time spent generating the BOM's on drawings and maintaining them with the ERP system. Of course everyone is not really thinking in terms of SolidWorks yet and is still stuck in the ACAD world of thinking (very inefficient). Even so, there are ways we just haven't investigated where we could export the ACAD BOM and import that into our ERP. The decisions like these are most often made by those that don't use the tools everyday and are unaware of other tools posibilities. It seems the root of the problem is that ERP systems are not picked by the individuals that either understand CAD or even care, CAD is seen as another entity that engineering takes care of. And I think that because of that most ERP systems have not had any real capability like this (until maybe just recently) because those purchasing the software hadn't thought to ask for it or demand it. Silly when you think of it because its engineering that really creates the BOMs in the first place. In our company we create the BOMs on the drawing and then draftsmen just basically re-type all of that information to enter them in the ERP - really crazy. Most of them haven't thought of ways to cut and paste let alone how this whole process could be automated, they just know they have to type it twice and it takes too long. I think what we are discussing is what the software industry is trying to term as PLM. A small (very small) part of that whole nebulous term is the concept of a single point of entry of information by the right people at the right time and then infinite re-use of that information when necessary. Create a model for a particular item, give it a description and appropriate file properties, and then use that information 50 other places where the BOM is automatic (SolidWorks assemblies). Really it should be the SolidWorks assembly that drives the ERP BOM and not some disjointed concoction of the two. I have heard of some products out there that allow you to tie SolidWorks (and your PDM) with your ERP system - SmarTeam is one of them. The problem right now is that these are very difficult to implement cleanly, quickly, and cost efficiently. Our SolidWorks VAR actually steered us away from that and to PDM/Works based on what he saw in our company. Often times attempts at this require that the company hires an individual full time who is an expert at just this application - which often times crosses off the list a number of small companies that just don't want to deal with the complexity, added staff, or downtime on implementation. On the other hand its absurd to think of the wastefullnes of having a program like SolidWorks and not using or at least tapping into some of the real power of it. It seems to me like CAD/PDM/PLM is heading this way, but its just not prevalent enough to be easy enough, cheap enough, or worth most company's effort with out some techincally proficient employees in that area. Of course companies like Boeing have millions, possibly billions of dollars to throw Dassualt and IBM's way on the design of the new 7E7 - but what remains the question is how worthwhile is it for small companies to implement this given the infinte number of possibilities that exist within the differences of the morkings of a company. We don't have companies like Dassault and IBM at our fingertips to consult us at every turn. I have been trying to find information myself on this topic and its always discussed as PLM, but there don't seem to be many solutions that seem worthwhile right now for a comany thats locked in with using a certain ERP system. Its not saying that we couldn't decide to make it work with some other products out there, its just that it doesn't seem worthwhile. I am sure that will change (it seems only logical) but who knows how long it will take - hopefully sooner rather than later. If anyone knows of a product that could go between PDM/Works and a product like Avante (by Epicor) I would love to be informed. For now it looks like the best bet is to use the reporting function of PDM/Works to create a text BOM and then import that into an ERP system. Maybe in the background thats really what more comlex set-ups are doing. I don't forsee PDM/Works expanding its capabilites as far as "speaking" to ERP systems as that would probably be stepping on the toes of SmarTeam. Hey - I know, why doesn't SolidWorks just go on another venture and set out to "bring affordable ERP to the desktop of every engineer." Hope I haven't bored anyone. Kellnerp, I would love to hear what you find. I'll try to do the same with huge amount of free time I have. Thanks.

Pete Yodis Harold Beck and Sons

kellnerp wrote in message news:...

Kellnerp,

Actually this has been a hot topic of conversation as of late within my company. We have a very similar situation. Hundreds of hand drawings, several thousand dwg's, and now recently SolidWorks data. We have an ERP system (Avante by Epicor) where we manually construct the BOM's for all our products. Our assembly drawings do contain BOM's as well. Just lately there has been a proposal to actually not display BOM's on drawings but use a printout from ERP system as the official BOM as this would conserve on time spent generating the BOM's on drawings and maintaining them with the ERP system. Of course everyone is not really thinking in terms of SolidWorks yet and is still stuck in the ACAD world of thinking (very inefficient). Even so, there are ways we just haven't investigated where we could export the ACAD BOM and import that into our ERP. The decisions like these are most often made by those that don't use the tools everyday and are unaware of other tools posibilities. It seems the root of the problem is that ERP systems are not picked by the individuals that either understand CAD or even care, CAD is seen as another entity that engineering takes care of. And I think that because of that most ERP systems have not had any real capability like this (until maybe just recently) because those purchasing the software hadn't thought to ask for it or demand it. Silly when you think of it because its engineering that really creates the BOMs in the first place. In our company we create the BOMs on the drawing and then draftsmen just basically re-type all of that information to enter them in the ERP - really crazy. Most of them haven't thought of ways to cut and paste let alone how this whole process could be automated, they just know they have to type it twice and it takes too long. I think what we are discussing is what the software industry is trying to term as PLM. A small (very small) part of that whole nebulous term is the concept of a single point of entry of information by the right people at the right time and then infinite re-use of that information when necessary. Create a model for a particular item, give it a description and appropriate file properties, and then use that information 50 other places where the BOM is automatic (SolidWorks assemblies). Really it should be the SolidWorks assembly that drives the ERP BOM and not some disjointed concoction of the two. I have heard of some products out there that allow you to tie SolidWorks (and your PDM) with your ERP system - SmarTeam is one of them. The problem right now is that these are very difficult to implement cleanly, quickly, and cost efficiently. Our SolidWorks VAR actually steered us away from that and to PDM/Works based on what he saw in our company. Often times attempts at this require that the company hires an individual full time who is an expert at just this application - which often times crosses off the list a number of small companies that just don't want to deal with the complexity, added staff, or downtime on implementation. On the other hand its absurd to think of the wastefullnes of having a program like SolidWorks and not using or at least tapping into some of the real power of it. It seems to me like CAD/PDM/PLM is heading this way, but its just not prevalent enough to be easy enough, cheap enough, or worth most company's effort with out some techincally proficient employees in that area. Of course companies like Boeing have millions, possibly billions of dollars to throw Dassualt and IBM's way on the design of the new 7E7 - but what remains the question is how worthwhile is it for small companies to implement this given the infinte number of possibilities that exist within the differences of the morkings of a company. We don't have companies like Dassault and IBM at our fingertips to consult us at every turn. I have been trying to find information myself on this topic and its always discussed as PLM, but there don't seem to be many solutions that seem worthwhile right now for a comany thats locked in with using a certain ERP system. Its not saying that we couldn't decide to make it work with some other products out there, its just that it doesn't seem worthwhile. I am sure that will change (it seems only logical) but who knows how long it will take - hopefully sooner rather than later. If anyone knows of a product that could go between PDM/Works and a product like Avante (by Epicor) I would love to be informed. For now it looks like the best bet is to use the reporting function of PDM/Works to create a text BOM and then import that into an ERP system. Maybe in the background thats really what more comlex set-ups are doing. I don't forsee PDM/Works expanding its capabilites as far as "speaking" to ERP systems as that would probably be stepping on the toes of SmarTeam. Hey - I know, why doesn't SolidWorks just go on another venture and set out to "bring affordable ERP to the desktop of every engineer." Hope I haven't bored anyone. Kellnerp, I would love to hear what you find. I'll try to do the same with huge amount of free time I have. Thanks.

Pete Yodis Harold Beck and Sons

Our customers will typically have the paper prints sent to a service for scanning into an electronic file and then between the ERP system and our SimplePDM, we batch load the image files with the proper revision and description into the SimplePDM vault and database. We did 14,527 files in a week for a customer who also needed to convert some old unix style drawings into a newer format where we also loaded them into the vault as well.

Best Regards,

-- Bob Hanson Centare Group, Ltd. - Custom Software and Systems Integration Specialists