×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

(OP)
Hi guys,
we routinely send part files back and forth to our manufacturer in China.  It's becoming a file management nightmare.
How can you track revision changes to part files?  Currently I send the file along with a email detailing each change, be it dimensional or a new feature.   This seems really dumb, and a huge time waster, and very hard to track.

Any input greatly appreciated

Gerry
www.scatmat.com

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

I worked in one place that had a very effective system for showing changes to molded parts.  These were computer shells being made in Taiwan.

When a revision was sent, there were three sets of solid bodies:
  • The most recent revision of the part
  • A set of solid bodies showing net material added
  • A set of solid bodies showing net material removed.
Transcends all language barriers, it does.

"Customer satisfaction, while theoretically possible, is neither guaranteed nor statistically likely.--E.L. Kersten
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

If you have SW Office, you could use the Compare
functions in the Utilities module. It can compare & highlight differences between Documents, Features & Geometry.

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

If it's so important to you, to document exactly which features are changed and in what revision they changed, here are some ideas:

- using SW2005: you can add a note for each changed/created feature, where you show the revision state

- using SW200x: you can change the feature name in order to show the revision state

Regards

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

To add to macPT:

In SW2005 you can add a Comment to each feature

and

In SW2005 you can use the Design Journal for recording your changes.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.scottjbaugh.com
Merry Christmas

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

macduff,

The ability to add a Word, Excel, txt, or any other file has been a part of SWX from day 1, not just 2005.  I used to keep a Word doc open in the file which encouraged me to write down why I did what I did.  This is especially helpful when doing new product development and you are trying many things.

- - -Dennyd

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

Dennyd,
Guess I learned something today. I'm going home now.....

Have a good Holiday all,

Macduff
Meggitt Airdynamics Inc.
Dell Precision 370
SW2004 Pro SP4.1
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1300

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

I make a new configuration for each new revision. You can then use API to generate a list of config-specific dimensions and their values.

--------------------
Bring back the HP-15
www.hp15c.org
--------------------

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

I'm using Visual Safe Source (VSS) - part of MS Visual Studio to back up all my data. Simple, easy to use and this enables me to keep track of any changes/revs. Simply update database and put your comments. Beauty of this is cmplete part history at any time and ability to roll back to very first revision if needed.

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

Dennyd

You are correct, but with 2005 you can attach this file to the design bin of the feature manager tree, which I think it's a much more pratical and elegant way to link this kind of documents to SW.

I'm planning, in the near future, that every documents related to the development of one part/assembly (thoughts, calculations, quality reports, specifications,...) will be accessed directly from the feature manager tree.

Regards

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

macPT,

That's good info.  Can you create a part template with this type of documentation already setup?

- - -Dennyd

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

Dennyd,
Yes you can have setup in your templates. I've been  working on that as we speak. I have our "Engineering Analysis" form imported as well as our "ECO form". Both of them our Excel documents.

Also,
Your last comment was talking about inserting docs in 2004. Can't figure how to get them loaded in the command manager.

Best,

Macduff
Meggitt Airdynamics Inc.
Dell Precision 370
SW2004 Pro SP4.1
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1300

RE: how do you know what changes have been made to a part?

Some things we have done in the past, SW04, we use a second sheet for the drawing and keep history notes on it for detailed information on revisions.  

Another option we have used is each revision is a seperate configuration, this is not always a great option for development, in those instances a new file (copy of the last rev) could be saved with the new rev level in the file name.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources