Drawing number, Part number. Best practice?

[Anonymous]

Hello again good community. 

I have yet again come to seek some advice about drawing/part numbers.

Short-version

I got some parts with a “Drawing number” and some part without. I only want the “drawing number” on my part list without editing the part list.

A bit longer version:

I work in a small old firm which till now is registering “drawing number” manually outside vault. The firm is new to vault and relatively new to Inventor in general. So the standard is quite low atm. 

First off, they only had “Drawing numbers” for critical parts and general arrangement. Some parts are e.g. Drilled pipes (pressure vessel) which does not have a drawing, its gets the “drilling instructions” from the General arrangement drawings.

I use “drawing number” instead of “part number” because the usual practice in this firm is only giving numbers to parts with drawings. 

I`ve been stuck in a loop now creating an own iproperty for drawing number, but the repercussion of that in vault pro made me quickly abandon it. 

Thought about making a vault numbering scheme, and just abandon the old numbering system (not going to have a happy productions boss after telling him) 
But if I do that I would have a lot of numbers and just some have drawings. Hard to tell which part has a drawing.

Could just rename the parts with their given drawing number. Then I would have two numbering schemes, which is not a good. 

Any ideas?

Generally, the parts that do not have a drawing are bought components, but are modified in a way only specified on an arrangement drawing, making them not Content center type parts.

Thanks for any comments or advices 🙂

Regards 

Karl Skarsboe

[IgorMir]

Hi Karl,

For what it worth - I keep it simple. Part N°, and Drawing N° is the same.  The reason behind it is that people on the floor work with drawings. Should they have any question regarding a particular drawing - they will quote a drawing number. Upon hearing that I know straight away which part to open on a computer.

Cheers,

Igor.

[blair]

I agree with Igor, all our drawings files match our part numbers. Why confuse the issue with having to cross link a drawing number that's different from the part number.

[Daniel248]

In addition to what's been said already, just want to add:

If drawing number = part number = file name, then you can take advantage of right-click on the IPT or IAM in any assembly and choose 'open drawing' to instantly open the drawing for that (if exists).

A quick way to access the drawings - very handy productivity boost when working with large assemblies. 

[mcgyvr]

Add me to the huge list of drawing number = part number = filename..

Its the best way and as stated above allows you to use the "open drawing",etc.. functionality in Inventor.. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot for all the contributions!!

Yes it’s an inevitable conclusion, and I have known it for almost as long as I been working with inventor, which is over 10 years now..

Separating drawing number from part number is not a smart solution. What is happening here is a demand to keep an old numbering scheme that will be hard to follow. The drawing number here is now 3xx-xx; where the no.3 is for sheet size on the drawing. E.g A3 = 3, A2= 2, the rest is just a sequential number with a meaningless divider. This worked fine in the old Acad days but now everything needs a number and now I have ended up on a dual numbering scheme.

Parts which have a standalone drawing gets the old number, and everything else is a just pulled from a sequential vault pro numbering scheme.

 So my part list with part numbers looks a bit odd with altering numbers.

3xx-xx

2xx-xx

10165

10166

4xx-xx

the more important matter is the stock number we get from our sales system but that`s another topic.

Anyways thanks for answers, i would love to see more thoughs if anyone has anything to contribute

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Using Vault, which makes some difference.

A drawing is a drawing and not a part. Material of a drawing is paper. If you have a part, give it a part number AND a material. That's the minimum. If you have parts that you buy, but also sell, they will have a part number as well, even if only for the sake of getting them invoiced to a customer.

If you need a drawing of a part then you make a drawing. Or several drawings. It's easy if the part number is reflected in the drawing number. But it's not a showstopper. In Vault you have "where used", so if the part is called "Bill" and you click on "where used" and it says "Jonathan.idw" that's no problem. You open "Jonathan.idw" and it shows you the details of part "Bill". If you have separate drawings for how to paint it, how to pack it, whatever ... you get to see all drawings that reference the part.

Never ever put information in filenames ! We had Productstream and file versions were attached to the filename. Meaning that you had to rebuild an assembly when things changed, otherwise you were using "xxxA" instead of the newer "xxxB". It might be tempting to add "A4..." to a drawing file name but consider what happens when information has to be added and the drawing needs to be A3. Will you continue with a false A4 or loose track with a renamed A3 drawing ?

The time of drawings representing non-existing parts is definitely over. Who wants a drawing that gives you a weight that hasn't been updated because of lack of time when you can have a part that corrects itself even when an extra hole has been drilled ? I will refuse to type a number in a leader, all I want is a leader which reads the model information and shows it. A drawing of an assembly will show correct information, even when copied leaders are moved from one part to another.

This business is about virtual reality. If you use living parts then everything downstream is real and reliable information.

My 0,02€

Alex

[Anonymous]

Thanks for a great answer Alex, and i completely agree. I have mentioned it a few times that part information in partnumbers is a risky choice.

Anyways thanks for the answer, might be what i needed to hear

Karl-

[Anonymous]

Quick question: At what point are you naming your files?
I ask this because during the design phase you might make 10 files. During the detail design phase you might use 5 original & create 5 new files.

So if you name during design you end up with gaps in the numbering which may look like you've missed information & at best is not great for my OCD!!

So I assume you use the project editor at the end of design to rename all your parts to get "drawing number = part number = file name"

Is this correct or is there another workflow I'm missing?
Thanks,
Beedub

[Daniel248]

I name or rename files as necessary only when a drawing relating to that file is required - it could be a manufacturing, assembly or any other drawing in which that file is referenced or appears in a BOM, and its properties need to appear in a table, a leader, etc. I use Vault for that.

In the design process we sometimes create large numbers of files, for different concept variations, options, illustrations, etc. and I think is counterproductive to properly name all of them at the point of creation.

More on this here:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/naming-rules/m-p/6413607#M602647

[srionde]

With vault you better use always unique file's name, so Vault can generate a sequentiel unique number for you.

Regarding the drawing #, i am using the part # , assembly # as this drawing #. We can also trying to make something logic like, assembly #100, sub : 101. part on this sub 101-01 etc.

But this is not an obligation to have  it.

every idw files, must be one part, or one sub only. this is better to manage revision number. Is it possible to have few pages on it, but if it's only for the same part (like weldment for exemple).

if you modify the part 101-01. so the idw will increase to rev B, but not the sub 101 that remain to A. if you have to add a part to your sub 101, so it increse to B, but not the 101-01.

In the parmater of the idw, like customers, name, project, s name etc.. i put it on the part and assembly iproperty, then copy and paste, it takes few seconds to do it, than orking on each idw iproperty.

If you have to reuse a part or an assembly already used from a previous projet, copy design can help you. or you can reuse the same idw. So if you have common part, maybe it's better to create a special part # and copy the idw file only to your project folder. 

I hope i was clear. Sorry english is not my native language.