PDMWorks Research

I'm looking at moving employers. The potential new employer uses Works along with PDMWorks. I'm looking for online resources to brush up on my PDMWorks knowledge, including getting it to interact with ERM systems.

Any good links?

Reply to
swizzle
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in reference to getting pdmw to interact with ERP, you might be better off banging your head against concrete wall. pdmw is a closed, proprietary system. yes some things can be accessed thru api, but it's more trouble than it's worth.

imho, it's virtually impossible for the results to justify the means.

since most ERP's are are based on ODBC compliant database's (SQL) it would seem logical to use a similar database type PDM system.

Reply to
kenneth

I didn't get much help searching for PDMWorks other than several links to the Solidworks website, but a search for Conisio left a plethora of information.

First of all, I didn't realize Conisio was bought and turned into PDMWorks Enterprise. The good news is that PDMW Enterprise uses a SQL database and not the closed proprietary system mentioned. It may require a customized app to be written, but at least the databases should share between PDMW and the ERP system. Of course, this is all assuming I got the job.

--Scott

Reply to
swizzle

we considered Conisio but, upon Solidworks aquiring them we decided to forgo getting in bed with an MCAD provider for our PDM (relational database) needs.

after using pdmw for almost 4 years, we chose

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Reply to
kenneth

Does DBWorks work well over a WAN?

I'm just starting with an orginisation that will need a PDM system, one of the requirements will be for several people to work remotely.

John Layne

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Reply to
John Layne

see this link,

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we have the enterprise version but have a single site. no comment on how well this feature works.

another alternative SQL based PDM system we looked heavily at was

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Reply to
kenneth

We have been using Conisio/PDMWorks Enterprise for about 6 years now and it works pretty well for the way we do things. I have also seen what I would call improvements since SW purchased the product. One of the biggest jumps we made was upgrading to SQL Server 2005 and PDMWE. This made an improvement in the speed of the system to where it's not too noticeable when it's doing its thing.

WT

Reply to
Wayne Tiffany

John:

Yes dbworks does work over a LAN, it is probably the best at it... And it is much less expensive than PDMWorks enterprise.

Reply to
harry

dbWorks will work over a WAN and it will also work well between companies. One of the things that is tracked in the database is the company to which the part belongs. So whether it is different divisions in your company or totally different companies there are ways to share parts and still keep track of them.

dbWorks will also keep two databases/filestores in sync IIRC.

TOP

Reply to
TOP

Thanks for the info, I will look at Dbworks and PDMWorks Enterprise, I'm leaning to PDWorks Ent as there is a local supplier i.e. my SolidWorks VAR. DbWorks might not be that well supported here at the bottom of the world, their website is down at the momement so can't do much in the way of research.

John Layne

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Reply to
John Layne

John,

If you are thinking about dbWorks implementation it is set up so that you can do it yourself. The prerequisites are:

  1. You know what you want to do as far as PDM. In other words, don't expect them to come to you with ancient wisdom on the best part numbering system, the best way to handle revisions, the best workflow. Now some resellers may very well know all this, but not all. I would be even more wary of a SW reseller, not that they are bad, but their primary task is to sell SW, not get into the customer's business. dbWorks is highly customizable and has reasonable defaults, but their approach has been to train the customer in how to maintain and configure it.

  1. You should be comfortable with Scripts, ie, vbScript and SQL. You don't absolutely have to know this, but it depends on how much you want to get out of it as to how much you will need to know this. They are moving in the direction of configurable instead of customizable, but if you want to get the most out of it this is a definite benefit. You won't generally need to write scripts from scratch but you will likely run into the need to change a script to meet your needs.

  2. Depending on the size of the installation you can go with a free MSoft mdb database, a free MSoft sql type database or full blown Server 2005 database. If the later is in the cards be prepared to have someone administer it. Most of the big boys are this way. It is also possible to use mySQL as the database and there are some users in Europe doing this.

  1. Make sure whatever you are using for a vault is in decent order. Duplicate filenames is the worst thing you could have. Having consistent custom props that can be imported is a big plus.

  2. Their support has been good and mostly by email. They can generally handle things pretty well by email or webex. Only training requires onsite support. There is a pretty good user group too with a few really good gurus.

TOP

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Reply to
TOP

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