Rev code systems?

On your drawing, include a Revision Table showing the previous revisions, their descriptions and their dates.

Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell

I doubt if many others deal with such as that. You're following a Mil Standard convention there with the revision table, and that should work well, but it's not often used outside of military contractor circles. If each sheet reflects the revision that is shown in the table then they (theoretically) shouldn't have any trouble with simply matching the revision table on the first sheet to the pages that they have. So just send them the table and the pages that changed as of the last revision (if you have separate PDF documents for each sheet). It sounds like the problem is with their limited understanding of the system. So, why don't you write down the system as simply and clearly as possible, and then indicate to them that requests for additional copies will be charged out at the going rate, including every minute it takes to transfer the files electronically?

I feel for ya. Stupid clients aren't often a problem to me (much more often dishonest ones), but sometimes . . .

Best regards, 'Sporky'

Oh, I missed that part, you do have a Revision Table, but your client still can't keep track of revisions?

Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell

Devon,

OK,,,, it's beginning to sound like they "lose" the drawings, or they're just plain dumb. Either way, charge em !!!

Regards

Mark

You don't need worry about creating PDF's and checking out for revisons...

You will have all revisions managed by SolidReflection

# asy to setup and configure # Create a real time image of all SolidWorks file activity # Automatically monitor all folders containing SolidWorks files # Maintain BOM information in real time # Batch print drawings from any BOM # Maintain item master details in real time # Maintain where used information on all parts and assemblies # Identify orphaned parts in real time # Extract custom field details in item master # Select from several Metric or English unit systems options # Extract sheet metal details in item master (flat length, width, thickness, etc.) # Publish PDF drawings in real time # Publish eDrawings in real time # Create DXF flat geometry for sheet metal parts # Archive PDF, eDrawings and DXF flat files # Export BOMs, item details and other lists to Excel, HTML or XML files # All information maintained in Access database tables

Nice pitch, but you missed the point. It's not about revision control. It's about a dumbass client.

Mark

Zander,

I have a similar situation here building molds for our customers. Typically when we complete a mold, we like to burn all of the CAD files to a CD and deliver it with the mold, with all of the drawings at Rev1 (released status). Sometimes this "slips through the cracks" and doesn't get done. And, it is fairly common that a mold will return to us for some "tweaking", an engineering change, or repair due to damage. A lot of time this requires some minor design changes which changes the revisions of several of the drawings.

So, how does the customer know what revision the tooling drawings are, at any given time? They could call us any time they needed to know (which is a hassle), or they could look it up themselves. I have setup an ftp site with different folders for each of our customers. Each of our customers have a login/password that gives them access and visibility to THEIR folder only. Under each of the customers there are subfolders for any of the molds that we have built for them.

I use Ipswitch WS_FTP Pro software to automatically update the entire ftp site every night with the latest PDF files for all drawings. When we make a new revision to a drawing, all we have to do is remember to create a new PDF and it will be posted on the ftp site that night for customer access. This could be done with the CAD files themselves, but as you know CAD files can get quite large.

This does take a bit of planning and time to setup. But we charge them a nominal amount each month to "host" their drawings for them. This is obviously optional. But it does make it worth the time.

Hope this helps...

P.S. We originally set this up this way because we have this one customer that will be building many manufacturing/assembly lines around the world consisting of our tooling design. Unfortunately, we will not be able to build all of the tooling for every location due to politics. So they wanted other locations around the world to have access to the latest drawings 24 hours a day for obvious reasons. If we had left it up to our customer to supply the different locations with the latest drawings, we would have lost "control" of our design. Any changes that we wanted to make would have been forbidden without first getting an engineering change request approved from them. This sometimes takes weeks with a company this size. With us controlling the drawings via ftp, we remain in control of the design. This is a very large project with roughly 800 tooling drawings that I have created and control.

Perhaps he is a disgruntled employee trying to kill this product by annoying everyone with it.

Hi Sporky,

Yes, my 'title page' always includes a revision table, changes are usually too numerous to mention but it serves to show the rev code and the date.

Their business moves fast and even if the drawing says eg. REV F and is dated yesterday, they will still call me and say "I think I have the latest revision but I just wanted to be sure".

In a way it's understandable, they want to be sure I'm not in the middle of some ECN or something, while they sent out drawings for quotation or actually order parts.

It's like the drawing needs an active real time blinking light that is green for go, red for stop, yellow for slow down.

hmm... maybe a pdf can have a 'live' html link to show status.

Zander

On that thought, we use Conisio as our PDM, and that way anyone can know very quickly whether or not they have the latest version. You might look into it.

WT