Copy Design Assemblies - Keep Link Intact

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of building up a standard library of assemblies/modules for substations and these assemblies have a lot of possible variance parts for similar applications.  For our situation it seems like the only way to accurately show and have an intelligent BOM for each scenario is to create “one off” assemblies which will be virtually the same as the first “parent” assembly except for maybe a few parts and/or sub-assemblies. 

A better example of this is, if the committee approves of a new structure and it is to supersede the dated one.  I would like to be able to update that first “parent” assembly by replacing the old structure with the new one and for the “one off” assemblies to be linked back to the parent and update with only that structure.  We have Vault set up and we could control what child assemblies are to be updated by managing the “WIP” or “Release” states for new revisions.

Right now with my understanding, it would be a manual process to update each assembly with the new structure because if I try to copy design the main assembly from Vault, it breaks the link afterwards.  It would be highly inefficient because we are expected to have hundreds of variance assemblies and a manual process of updating them cannot be an option for us.  I thought from the Vault, there might be a way to use the “Copy Design – Reuse” method, where one is to reuse everything except the top level assembly and to have everything in the new assembly be the same as the original model it was copied from and still remain “linked”.

I am very curious as to hear what some of your suggestions are.  I have done quite some research around the web and these forums and I don’t think the several copy design tools within Inventor that are mentioned (Vault’s Copy Design Tool (Maybe?) , Inventor’s Copy Component Tool, Design Assistant, iLogic Design Copy Tool, iCopy, Pack n Go etc.) will cover what we would like to accomplish.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Not sure where you're getting your information but Vault Copy Design would allow for that and there's no need to manually rebuild any links.  At my last job we have a filtration skid template assembly that had hundreds of components (parts and sub-assembly).  When a job came along the template was built in such a way that we only need to Vault Design Copy 5 files including the template drawing.  Meaning close to 90% of the model was still linked to the template or main files.

Update:  Also I glanced over the 2nd paragraph too quickly..  We also had that same scenario or requirement.  In our Vault, we had a template folder structure that had WIP, Released, and Archive.  When a new template updated model was being worked on, its structure would get moved copied to WIP and the files would be replaced using the Save and Replaced Function under the Assembly Productivity Tool section.  Files that got changed would be designated by a revision associated to the template.  That's the only way you can separate them from existing designs and jobs.  Not saying you have to do this but it worked well for us.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your reply!  I think I understand the method that you mentioned but with the way our assemblies are put together, I don't think it will work as efficiently as the way we we intended it to do.  You mentioned that your assembly templates had 90% of the parts/sub-assemblies in there, ours is more like 60-70 percent and the rest are variance parts.  Our assemblies can't be "incomplete", they have to contain all of the necessary variance parts/sub-assemblies because of the way they fit together.  Changes can be done at the next copied derivative assembly of the original and won't be linked backwards to the parent assembly.  It should only be linked going forward from the first parent assembly down to the sequential child assemblies not the other way.    

See attached image for what we want to accomplish with our assemblies.  There are some scenarios/logic provided that I hope can help better explain what we would like to do.  I just may not be aware of a method out there that can make this idea happen..

[mcgyvr · Accepted solution]

Have you looked into iassemblies?

I think thats exactly what you are looking for based on my understanding of the question/problem so far...

example..

Scenario 1 

Assembly 1 is one member of the iassembly "factory", assembly 2 just adds on that new part and becomes a new member..

Changes to part 1-4 will effect both assembles.. changes to part 5 will only effect assembly 2

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016...

[TheDrizzle]

Agreed, I think iAssemblies are what you're after. I have done almost exactly this designing substations.

You can create a master assembly which contains everything. When you replace a structure, it replaces it in all of it's children (read: assemblies it gives birth to, not components it uses). Inventor calls these Members.

When it comes to saving a design which you have used and do not want automatically updated (e.g. this design has gone out for construction), you can break the link to the factory (master) assembly and save that somewhere else in Vault. Meanwhile, you can carry on developing that assembly for future uses.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi rprilenski,

Another thought is to make Assembly1 a Phantom assembly (do this by going to the Tools tab > Document Settings > Bill of Materials tab)

Then you simply place Assembly1 into Assembly2 and add components to assembly 2 as needed. The BOM doesn't see phantom components, so it shows all the components of Assembly1, as components of assembly2.

Make a change to assembly1 and that change is reflected in all the assemblies that reference it.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for chiming in!  mcgyvr, I looked into iAssemblies and I am now confident that this method will take care of all of our variance assemblies that rely off of the master assembly.  That is great to know that someone else within the utility industry is using iAssemblies for their substations.  

TheDrizzle, I hope I am not overstepping but what Utility Company are you currently or in the past building substations for?  Curtis, we have actually for quite some time believed that we were going to utilize phantom assemblies but scratched that after running into several complications within our design process.  

[Curtis_Waguespack]

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@Anonymous wrote:

  Curtis, we have actually for quite some time believed that we were going to utilize phantom assemblies but scratched that after running into several complications within our design process.  

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Hi rprilenski,

While a phantom BOM structure for Assembly 1 does fit the bill for all three scenarios in the image you attached, I suspected that indeed it was a suggestion that only worked "on paper".

If you have a few minutes you might visit this Idea Forum link and share your thoughts on where you are seeing the limitations with using the phantom BOM structure to provide the flexibility you need:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/add-phantom-as-a-bom-status-option-within-the-assembly/idi-p/4861094

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input.  I'll take a look at this and see if I can add anything to the link you provided.

[taylorUJ7H2]

Hi @Anonymous , I am curious what solution you went with as I am finding I am in a similar situation. Can you please give and update?

(Curious if iassemblies was the solution, how would that look now with Model States)