we have simple assemblies with bolted weldments and few misc. parts. most assemblies are 3-20 parts
a typical project would have:
-a few laser cut parts, some plastic and hardware. these items need to have part drawings sent to a vendor.
-some in house cretaed parts that need a drawing
-assembly drawing for our shop
i think i am seeing that by having one single IDW its getting hard to send all the drawings to the people that need them. an example would be if a vendor calls about one part, i may send him a 4 page PDF and tell him to look on sheet 2.
the other issue that i have is that my standard work flow is:
-design a product
-hand of to another dept for them to enter SKU numbers for parts and assemblies.
so my file names never match what the final product name is. i have been using fields in the iPROP, but it would be nice to revise file names when SKUs are created. im guessing vault would be the tool for something like that?
i would love to see what others are doing that have similar issues
I've always thought that 1 multisheet drawing is a bad idea and would NEVER suggest anyone do that..
Each part or sub or assembly should have its own drawing.
As for assigning Sku's.. Why can't you just do that?
I guess you also don't create the drawings either.. How could you if you don't know what the part numbers (SKU) are..
I've done the temp file name stuff and thought its just silly.. I have to then go back and save copy as..Then replace components in assemblies,etc... (I don't use Vault yet..and frankly hope I don't ever have to)
not all products get entered into our system or make it to the point of "going live"
and the other departments do not want bugus / dead SKUs. so when a design goes to production, we then enter SKU's. i then go back and use the "part numb" iprop when i get the info. would be much more clean if i could have file names be the SKU i agree.
i make all the drawings.
yes that is the problem, we do not have a standard in place that lets me build out the final part number. when starting a drawing.
agree with mcgyvr - each component should have its own idw and then more idws for each assembly.
Too many advantages with this method that it's crazy not to:
1) each part has it's own drawing so only that info goes to the supplier (prevents confusion and you're not sending the entire design to everyone - from a data protection/security point of view).
2) If a part needs updating/changing in the future you only need to alter that 1 drawing instead of upissuing the entire data-set for 1 of its components
3) If all the data is in 1 massive idw what happens if it crashes? You can't just replicate that 1 drawing but have to recreate all sheets and all views. (it used to happen years ago and far more stable now, but should still be a thought in the back of your mind)
4) what about pc speed? If you're working on 1 component with 1 idw then you only need those parts open at that time. If all the data is in 1 file then the pc is bogged down (and having to still think about/process) all the other components/assemblies that you're not actively detailing at that moment.
5) Allows parts to be used across multiple projects...
...
etc
...
and that's just straight off the top of my head...
As for our workflow - I think we're kinda similar, we only give part numbers to parts/assemblies that are going live and intended to be used. We work in a "work in progrss" directory (each user working on their own project/data within their own sub-directory) and when it's ready to be issued then we assign it a number and move it over to the "live data" directory with Design Assistant (don't use Vault atm.) so the assemblies still have their links working ready for when we move those over.
Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey
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