Recommended File Structure?

[Anonymous]

Hello Everyone,

I am doing a summer internship at a company where they are having me do a drawing of their current plant/floorplan. 

I will be leaving this company in just a few weeks to return to school, but I want to leave with a good file structure in place so that everyone who needs to can access the DWG/s and make changes. My main goal is to have a file structure that is easy to understand and organized. 

Main Question: How does your company handle DWG files that are updated, viewed, and revised often so that they stay organized?

Current File Structure: (non-existent)

When I came to the plant, if you were to look at their plant layout folder on their shared files server there were files such as:

"Master Plant Layout.dwg" 

"Master Plant Layout_01_05_2014.dwg"

"Master Master Plant Layout.dwg"

"Master Master Plant Layout_rev4.dwg"

and so on.... it was horrible and a mess. Honestly no one here knows what the most up to date version is. Also, every engineer has their 'own' private copy on their harddrive because they don't want to mess up the 'good one' on the server.

How will the company use these files:

This company is very active on constant improvement so they are always looking at the layout file/s to maximize efficiency and space. They have done 4 kaizen events in just the past 2 months that have utilized these drawings. What I am getting at is that these drawings will be viewed, edited, updated to more effiecient designs, etc.... all the time. So a good file system is important.

My thoughts on a file structure:

While I have been drawing the floor plan I have labeled my DWGs as such:  year_month_day_Plant Layout_rev#.dwg 

For example, my latest file looks like this: 2014_07_08_Plant Layout_rev03.dwg 

The revision number is just for that day. So I am on my 3rd revision of today. Tomorrow morning I will save the file as 2014_07_09_Plant Layout_rev01.dwg 

I like this file structure/naming scheme because Windows Explorer will sort by name which will put the files in chronological order. Also, during a kaizen event there may be 5 revisions in just one day. This naming scheme allows the user to save it with the date, but as a seperate revision.

This is the file structure I had in mind to pass on to the company before I leave, but I would really like to know how other companies handle their file structure.

Main Question: How does your company handle DWG files that are updated, viewed, and revised often so that they stay organized?

Thanks,

Nicholas Morgan

[Anonymous]

This may sound crazy to some, but....

Keep your data alive.  Never put some thing in a file name that is subject to change.  No dates, rev numbers or sheet numbers.

Your first floor plan should be called "First_Floor_Plan.dwg".  As revisions are submitted, save BACK (into a superseded folder) a copy of the drawing to capture the as delivered state i.e. "First_Floor_Plan_rA.dwg".  This keeps all file dependencies intact and pointed at the current "live" data.  There is never a question about "which one is the correct one".  All your sheet sets stay linked to the "live" layouts.  Your plans that rely on Xref's are always looking at the current "live" data.  Other products that are connecvted to your data are always looking at the current "live" data.

This is BIM.

[PaulMunford]

I concur.

Archive DWG's before you edit them. Supersed PDF's...

[Anonymous]

Okay, that makes sense to me. So it will just be important that the engineers understand that they need to save before editing. 

In a few other softwares I've used there is a Save As Copy funtion which allows me to save a copy, but remain in the current file. This would seem handy for this situation, but I can't seem to find a Save As Copy function. Does this exist in AutoCAD?

I'm assuming the same file structure would be maintained for all sub-dwg files that will be XREF-ed into the master?

Thanks for the advice,

Nicholas

[Anonymous]

AutoCAD does have a "SaveAs" but when performing a SaveAs the newly saved file will be the file opened in the editor. As an option you can issue the WBlock command and use the "Entire drawing" option. One side effect of using this technique is the newly created file will be purged of unused objects. That can be a good thing - or not.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, okay....I wonder why acad doesn't have a Save As Copy command. That sure would be handy.

Anyways, on the wblock command...what do you mean by "unused objects"? Does this mean items on non-visible layers or something different? 

Thanks,

Nicholas

[PaulMunford]

If you are using X-Ref's you may want to use AutoCAD's 'Archive' tool. This is similar to 'eTransmit' in that it will save all files to a new folder, including copies of all X-Ref's e.t.c

This is particularly powerful when used with the Sheet Set Manager to create 'Milestone' archives of the whole drawing set, but there is no reason why you couldn't use it on individual files.

[ccl_cad_manager]

There are 3 SAVE Commands in ACAD

QuickSAVE (QSAVE) - Saves the drawing where it is.
SAVEAS - Allows you the change the name/location of the current drawing

SAVE - Allows you to save a copy of the current  drawing to another name or location, but keeps you in the current drawing and location.  

WBLOCK and/or SAVE will probably help you out the most.

[Anonymous]

So it appears the SAVE command is different than the File>Save button. 

Tha SAVE command is exactly what I was looking for. I wish somehow that I could make the File>Save the same as the SAVE command. I feel like some of the engineers here may forget that SAVE and File>Save are different and they will just click File>Save and wonder why it isn't allowing them to save a duplicate....