PDMWORKS Q?

I'm sorry for being so dense, but I can't see what your question is.

Getting the revision on the drawing title block is as easy as setting up a "format" (drawing border) which uses notes which reference custom properties. Strangely enough, the revision level is stored in the SW part in a custom property called "Revision".

You need to set up a primary and secondary revision scheme to go along with the settings in your Lifecycle. Lifecycle can be kind of tricky to set up and use properly.

There's a thing called "Working Copy" which you might want to use if you don't want to have a lot of intermediate revisions run the rev level up quickly.

If you're interested in professional implementation help with this, go to

Matt

snipped-for-privacy@rediffmail.com wrote in news:1115699963.043411.98460 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Hi Matt,

thanks for an early reply. I know how to link the custom properties with drawing format. But coming back to my first question.... Lets say two people are working on a project which is one assembly with five parts. One person creates a part with ten features now the other person has to add some features. So how do they share the same part? As per my understanding, first person will have to check it in the vault for the other person to accesss it. And the second person has to check out the part do the modifications and check it in again. If they do it couple of times, the revision of the part is gone up but the part is still not ready to be released. The first release should have rev A or 01 not not starting for somewhere in between. I hope I am clear this time. It will be great if you answer this. I will go thro' the website you have mentioned.

thanks Kav

The best way to handle this would be with the "working copy". So the first revision in your revision scheme is "-", and then you would go to "-+" (the

• is the working copy designator). Then each person could check the part in at "-+" until you are ready to go to "A" or "01". The drawback to the working copy is that you lose all of your intermediate working copy revisions, they are over written.

Another way of handling this which does not overwrite intermediate working copy revs would be to have a separate revision scheme for development. Maybe a designator like "DEV01". If you want it to work correctly, you shouldn't have rev schemes that have the same revision names.

Matt

snipped-for-privacy@rediffmail.com wrote in news:1115703603.943938.318410 @o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Thanks Matt..

That did help to a large extent.

Another question...

If I have a part with two configurations and have two separate drawings for each. How do I control the different revision level for each?

Thanks > The best way to handle this would be with the "working copy". So the first

development.

Thanks Matt..

That did help to a large extent.

Another question...

If I have a part with two configurations and have two separate drawings for each. How do I control the different revision level for each?

Thanks > The best way to handle this would be with the "working copy". So the first

development.

"Kav" wrote in news:1115777821.600942.120910 @g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Each drawing has its own config, but the part with two configs only has 1 revision in PDMW.

I usually recommend that you don't try to keep the part and the drawing at the same rev level anyway, it's just too much hassle.

You should look at DBWorks it solves all these problems in an out of the box solution that uses a database

..

Hi matt,

It means that the drawings will have a different revision levels than parts? Title block in the drawings will have there revision column linked to properties of drawings and not of parts? Revision level of parts does not reflect anywhere at all?...

kav

"Kav" wrote in news:1115878100.042776.50090 @o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

It's good practice to show the model revision on the drawing, probably in small 8 pt font so there is no confusion with the drawing revision. But yeah, the model and the drawing rarely have the same rev. I've seen people try to keep them the same, but in the end, there really isn't any driving need for that, and it's just creating unnecessary work for yourself.

Hi, I am still not very clear whether the part or its drawing should control the actual revisions? What happens to the part files with different configurations and different revisions? And what happens to the drawing with multiple sheets with different revisions. We have all those data to put on to pdmworks. Hi all pdwmork users what do you follow? please pour in...

TIA Kav

- Drawing controls part.

- Configurations not supported in pdmw. Even if they were, this would just seem to make things more complicated.

- Multi-sheet drawings with different rev levels, massive complications. The shorter route is not always the best.

"Kav" wrote in news:1115941694.162818.280230 @g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

The Drawing should control the Drawing rev, and the model rev (part or assembly) should be referenced in smallish print on the drawing.

woops, didn't see the rest of the post...

Don't do that. Configurations are so interrelated, I would never attempt to assign revisions to separate part configs. PDMWorks will show you the configs inside a part or assembly file, but will only assign a revision to the part, not to the configs. A change to any configuration will up-rev the entire part file.

Now if you have drawings of the configs in different drawing files, you can assign separate revisions to those, and still reference the part rev on the drawing.

Well, you won't do that with PDMWorks unless you save the separate sheets out as separate files, which isn't such a bad idea anyway. This debate comes up every now and then, the philosophical vs the practical. Regardless of whethter it is a good idea to make multisheet drawings with per-sheet revisions, PDMWorks only assigns revisions to individual electronic documents, the way we did things 30 years ago on paper notwithstanding.

You will have to re-think some of your processes if you're going to try to use PDMWorks in this environment.

Thanks

That makes me a bit clear how to start my bits. But I guess there is a massive work for whole lotta old data which needs to be inline with what pdmworks understand. Do all the PDM softwares with other cad packages Pro/e, catia, ug work in the same fashion? They also find it difficult to handle multiple configs or multiple sheets?

Kav

I don't know about the other cad packages, but there are other PDM systems for Solidworks. 2 have been highly regarded and discussed in this ng, they are DBWorks & Conisio. Do a search via Google for past discussions. DBWorks was mentioned in the middle of this thread.

Using configs and multi-sheet drawings is ok per say with PDMW. It's the context in which they are used that matters. Config's are great for assembly drawings, hiding/suppressing items to illustrate sequencial steps required to assemble a component or to show different positional layouts. Multi-sheet drawings are a necessity. However, all sheets should be associated to the same assembly or part, which in turn means the rev for each sheet is the same.

Don't have time to go further in depth.

I struggled with this for a long time too. Then I had a long chat with my VAR who happens to be very good at PDMWorks. You have to think of the revision that PDMWorks assigns as a version number and then establish a custom property with another name like RealRevision to contain your revision number. That field is under manual control. Once you do this you don't have to worry about PDMWorks updating the revision number when you do some cosmetic change to a drawing or do some SWcentric background file operation.

What about NUMBER and DESCRIPTION? Should they be linked to drawing properties like revisions or to the respective part or assembly drawings? Kav

Kav,

There appears to be a lack of understanding regarding PDM systems and SW configurations. The following explanation demonstrates how DBWorks handles them. This is how E-data Solutions sets up their clients.

1. DBWorks has a set of options to control configuration states and revsions. They are turned on.
2. DBWorks has a set of options to link models and drawings. They are turned on.
3. DBWorks has options to ignore specifically named configurations. I have it set up to ignore configurations beginning with REF_ and FLAT-PATTERN.(More on this later).
4. I have DBWorks link the configuration_revision of the model to drawings.
5. File revisions are meaningless when using configurations.
6. DBWorks can intercept the creation of configurations to assign a unique ID to it. The drawing assumes the same number when created.
7. DBworks has option settings to force the increment of revsions or use existing revsion level. The latter is for administrative or "typo" revisions of drawings. Since DBWorks logs all actions - ISO auditors will be happy when you tell them when, where, and why changes were made.

The process. Create a new part. Hit save. DBworks autoassignes a new number 12345 to this file and part.First file revision and configuration will be X1 Create a new drawing. Drag and drop the part into drawing and hit save. Drawing picks up number, material, etc... and fills in titleblock. Create a new configuration called REF_Simplified. DBWorks will ignore this configuration as it is used for geometry purposes only. The same applies for flat patterns of sheet metal parts. Approve the part. Check out the part - file revision will be X2. DBWorks will check out the related drawing at the same time. Create new configuration. DBWorks will automatically assign new number

12346 and set configuration revision to X1. Create drawing of new revision. If you need a second drawing for this part DBWorks will tell you one exists and ask if you want to use it. If no, it creates and links a new drawing called 12346_0. Thus, second configuration has two drawings 12346 and 12346_0 linked to it.

Approve model/drawings at this time.

Time to release 12345 to production. Check out drawing 12345. Linked model 12345 will come out and the file revision will be A. Change the configuration revision of 12345 from X1 to A. Check-in and approve this file.

Results:

File 12345 contains two active configurations and on reference configuration. File revision is at A. Part 12345 and its drawing are at configuration revision A (Production) Part 12346 and its two drawings 12346 and 12346_0 are at X1 (Prototype).

Because one of the configurations has been released to production the file has been approved and locked. Any work to bring the second configuration up to production status will require an checking out the file (Revsion A.1) and bumping up the second configuration revision to A.

When approved, DBWorks will fill out the revsion block with the appropriate approval name, date, revision description and confguration description.

This sounds fairly complicated but with some practice it becomes second nature. Just concentrate on configuration revisions and ignore the file revsion. By checking out the drawing you are intrested in - DBWorks figures out which linked file needs to be open to allow the necessary changes to occur.

Drawings, autonumbers, file/drawing relationships, revision blocks, etc... are all taken care of automatically. I even have DBWorks controlling a watermark on the drawing that distiguishes between an "approved prototype" and "Released to Production". Playing with the new master document mode that automatically creates linked PDF files of the drawing during check-in.

Hopes this clears up some confusion.

Cheers,

Len K. Mar, P.Eng. President E-data Solutions.

snipped-for-privacy@edatasolutions.ca wrote in news:1115994365.017919.128550 @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

The poster asked specifically about PDMWorks, and the other answers were given with his question in mind. I'm sorry you think this shows a lack of understanding.

DBWorks sounds interesting. Since you are a salesman, why don't you give us pricing?