File/Design Organization for Multi User Machine Shop

[timdrink01]

I'm finally ready to force the process of migrating our operation to Fusion.  I'm struggling with how to organize our file structure within Fusion.  

We are primarily a machining job shop.  Parts range from drill and tap a couple of holes to multi setup mill/turn parts.  We primarily work off of customer supplied drawings and sometimes even a solid model.  Drawing quality ranges from being supplied a dxf to 80 year old hand drawn.  These are what my customer supplies, that's what I have to work with.  Obviously we have to redraw as needed. 

Some customers we do entire assemblies other customers it's some widget that I have no idea what it does.  We also have a small product line that we will be moving into Fusion as well.  

I haven't been able to find much in regards to a multi user environment being used primarily for CAM.  We have three programmers and looking to train a fourth soon.  We currently have three seats and will add 2-3 more once we get further into the transition.  

A project for each customer? One project for contract machining and then a folder for each customer inside the project?

I'm worried about starting in the wrong direction and ending up with a mess.  I also don't want to be constantly messing around with permissions.  

Any thoughts or experiences to share?

Edit:

Another thought occurs to me.  Is it possible to distinguish rights within a model.  As in the programmers have rights to modify the CAM but not change the model.  Also for thought once the model is released to production it can't just get changed willie nillie.  I guess this would be an issue whenever you are programming off of a 'live' model.  This has to be a common challenge that's been solved before.  

[HughesTooling]

What I've done is one project that contains a folder for each customer then sub folders for their customers or designs. You should be able to share the top level project with all your programmers, the only draw back is whoever you share the top level project with will have access to all subfolders. If you want to work and share with a customer you'll have to create a project, unfortunately there's no way to share individual folders.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

---

@timdrink01 wrote:

Edit:

Another thought occurs to me.  Is it possible to distinguish rights within a model.  As in the programmers have rights to modify the CAM but not change the model.  Also for thought once the model is released to production it can't just get changed willie nillie.  I guess this would be an issue whenever you are programming off of a 'live' model.  This has to be a common challenge that's been solved before.  

---

Someone requested what you're after, see here. Doesn't look like it'll happen for awhile.  One option for the programmers, import the finished design in effect making an assembly file where the imported file remains linked so can't be edited, don't think there's any way to make the original read only though.

Mark

[timdrink01]

That seems to be inline with what I was thinking.  I'll have play with the importing.  Otherwise we'll 'just' have to require that people follow the rules, so to speak.  Allow me to think out loud.

One project for 'Contract Machining' this would be the stuff where were not involved in the design process.  The models in this project are completely controlled and open to all programmers.

Jobs where we are involved in the design get a separate project for each job so that access can be controlled.  Seems a shame but may have to do an export to move the model from the design project to the 'Contract Machining' project once prototypes are done and its released for production.

[timdrink01]

What about Fusion Team?  Would that be a better solution to create a company environment?  

Anyone have a good description of how it's supposed to work with fusion 360?  Opinions?

[Feiqi.Zhang]

Fusion Team should be a good approach for general team/project management.  It shares the same account of your Fusion 360 managing your Fusion 360 data.  I will forward your case to the corresponding team to see if they have good suggestion for it.  In the meantime, you probably want to take a look at this (https://fusionteam.autodesk.com/), and also here is a short description of its advantage (http://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?caas=caas%2Fsfdcarticles%2Fsfdcarticles%2FAdvantages-of...

However, for the machining data/Model data level permission control, it might not be easy for today's Fusion, as both machining data and model data are stored in one f3d file.  I will check with certain expert to see if there is any idea.  I will let you know if I get something helpful.

Feiqi Zhang - Fusion 360 

[jeff.pek]

You can store the CAM in a separate model, and bring in the design components as x-ref. I'm not sure whether it's possible to designate different privileges for these separate files, however.

  jeff