Cut Sheet Help

[ColbiBenton44]

How are most companies handling cut sheets. We had a 3rd party write a program. That would do the following. 

What would you recommend in order to accomplish this. Autodesk says manually. Then sent me here. 

• Cut sheets.
  • Additional sheets of assembly drawing
    • 1 per item excluding items on cut list.
    • Only items residing in same subfolder of “Design” folder as the assembly drawing file.

• Sheet name = ITEM Item# (e.g., ITEM 2)

• B size sheet

• Cut sheet template title block.

• Prompted entry for the following title block properties.
  • Initials of user
  • Qty per unit (from Parts List of Assembly drawing)
  • Item # (from Parts List of Assembly drawing)
  • Ask the user once during the operation; however, prompted entry functionality must still exist so manual overrides can be entered.
  • If a cut sheet exists, then do not override the initials if they already exist.

• Sheet Metal - bent
  • 3 standard views without hidden lines
  • 1 view of flat pattern (Separate sheet if scale is higher than 1:10
  • Each view will be scaled based on the formed and flat model extents in the applicable orthographic projection (e.g., front, right, top, etc.) and the customer defined area on the drawing for each view.

• Non-sheet metal or sheet metal unbent.
  • 3 standard views with hidden lines
  • Each view will be scaled based on the formed and flat model extents in the applicable orthographic projection (e.g., front, right, top, etc.) and the customer defined area on the drawing for each view.

• Bend Annotation on bend lines (standard Inventor function)
• If sheets already exist
  • do not overwrite.
  • adjust sheet names.
    • in case of item number changes
  • add additional sheets if necessary.
    • new parts added.
    • new sheets may have different designer initials.
  • remove sheets if necessary.
  • existing parts removed.

[WCrihfield]

What do you mean by "cut sheet"/ "cut sheets"?  It's not a term common to everyone.

Our company doesn't include individual part drawings as sheets within the same drawing document as the assembly they are used in.  Some of our parts may potentially be used in hundreds of assemblies.  We have one drawing document for each model document, whether it be a part or an assembly.  The drawing document for an assembly, only documents the assembly, its dimensions, its features, its assembly procedure(s), and its parts list.  The parts list includes the part numbers of the parts involved and their quantities.  If anyone needs more details about any of the assembly's parts, they refer to the drawing document for that part.  The model document file has the same file name as the corresponding drawing document (with different file extension, of course).  Then if we need to relate an assembly to an outside source, we include the PDF of the assembly drawing, the PDF of the part drawings, and usually include a single STEP file of the assembly (because it represents not only the assembly, but models of all the parts and sub-assemblies within it).

[ColbiBenton44]

When I say cut sheet I'm referring to what's being sent to the shop for dimensions and what to bend/cut and what they need to do. 

[WCrihfield]

OK.

So, it sounds like your assembly drawing has something called a "cut list", which is different that the Parts List right?  I'm assuming this is for the simple items, which are just common material, cut to a length or rectangular size, and don't require a drawing sheet, right?  Then I'm assuming the parts list only lists the items which might require more processing, and you intend on creating a separate drawing sheet for each of them, right?  If so, are these two lists prepared before the automation process is to begin, so it knows which ones to create drawing sheets for?

Creating code that will completely automate the creation of a finished set of drawings for an assembly and all of its components, that is entirely custom to your needs, is usually a huge and complex task.  There are likely to be way to many variables involved for a remote, 'outside' person to be able to create the code for you.  You may find bits and pieces of code available here on the forums that will do parts of what you want, and you may find some add-ins on the Autodesk App Store that will do a lot, but most likely nothing you find will do everything you're wanting.

When you say that you had a "3rd party" write a program for this, did they finish the code?  If so, what is wrong with the code they wrote?  What platform did they use (iLogic, VBA, vb.net, other)?  If it doesn't do everything you listed, then what parts does it do?

[ColbiBenton44]

It was a reseller of Autodesk products and they want to nickel and dime us for an upgrade of code they no longer even have. So they want 5k just to figure out if they can. Back story we are running Inventor 2018 and Vault 2018. We are ready to upgrade and just to get our automation back they want to price tag everything to the point of no return. We found that they were over charging us for our renewals so we left them for Autodesk. Autodesk stated they were slowly moving away from Resellers. So I'm just looking for a solution for my team. 

[A.Acheson]

Customizing and automating most of the the drawing package is a big task but not impossible especially if you are learning coding as you go. I am almost at the end of a 2year of part time automation for drawing template, create drawing views, MRP semi integration with BOM/iproperties import /export. Alot of the content was learned and utilized from this forum and other internet spritzed and   A lot of time I put in researching topics was outside office hours and trouble shooting on the weekends. But the upside is the skills learned will benefit the organization in many other projects and refining the workflow as jobs and product lines adapts. 

1. Have you a dedicated resources for taking on this tasks? 
2. What is the state of your current inventor setup? Fully operational but drawings are all manual? Having everything set up is critical as less time wasted modifying code and trying to figure out what styles to use, etc.