Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
(OP)
I have an employee that decided that when she wanted a new part that was the same as an old part but minus the last 2 features, she would save as copy then roll back the feature tree 2 features. UGHGHGHGHG
Now I have a 50 part assembly on my screen and solidworks keeps telling me that some parts were saved in their roll back state, would I like to roll them forward. Go figure!
Now I have a mess on my hands. Is there a way to check what parts she did this to? Or do I have to go thru them all.
I hate work.
Now I have a 50 part assembly on my screen and solidworks keeps telling me that some parts were saved in their roll back state, would I like to roll them forward. Go figure!
Now I have a mess on my hands. Is there a way to check what parts she did this to? Or do I have to go thru them all.
I hate work.






RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
What happens if you tell SW, 'Yes'?
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Why she did this is beyond me.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
After that is done, give the assy back to the employee to suppress the parts features properly. It should be a lesson learned for her and a mistake she will not (should not) repeat.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Flores
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
designeering, enginerding, hackmanship.
SW2008 Office Pro SP4.0
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
2.2GHz, 2.00GB RAM
QuadroFX 3700
SpacePilot
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
She creates a whole new feature and extrudes it .010! UGHGHGHG
No wonder my planes are not centered!
I ask her to do it the right way and I get called everything in the book.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
How about this one, same employee does not want to put in any properties in the part. Instead, she will manually type in everything in the title block on the drawing.
Of course, I have it set up that you input your properties in the part (your name, part description, material, treatment, and so on) and when you make the drawing it automatically populates.
She just got done screaming at me and calling me every name in the book because she was giving a fellow employee bad advice and I called her out on it. She tried telling me that she can do whatever she wants and it does not effect me.
Of course it effects me. We do alot of "save as copy" here from other peoples parts.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
He is a good guy and is new to being boss. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. Telling stubborn people what to do can be hard.
After the first of the year, he said we are going to sit down and write "design rules" and everyone has to follow it. I said great idea but I don't think people will follow it. They just don't care.
Hell, I got people making part xxxxx-1 and xxxxx-2 and putting a note on xxxxx-1 that says "Refer to xxxxx-2 for opposite hand. Dimensions the same but opposite".
We had a person hand typing in all her hole call outs because she didn't know about the hole wizard.
The same employee that this thread started with will not put her planes in the middle of the part, wont' use design tables, add's a feature to widen a part instead of editing the sketch, and tons of other things.
It is just a PAIN because when it comes to me, I am expected to do something in a similar time frame and I can't unless I do it wrong like she did and just get it out the door.
How can you explain to the boss that taking the time to do something correct, will pay off the next time you use a part.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Be diligent. Keep records and copies of the work in question! Make sure to bring it up with your boss everytime it happens. Trust me it works, just stay on it.
Nothing like getting weldment drawings with no bom's, dimensions, or callouts and figure someone could actually manufacture it...
This sort of thing went on at my current work for years. So we're wading through extremely poor models on a daily basis. Eventually with good practice this will all get weeded out, but man it will take years to sort this mess out.
I feel your pain!
James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I too feel your pain, often, especially with certain former coworkers and some customers. But then once in a while I'll open up something I did back in 99 and wince.
Peace on Earth, Diego
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
https:
http:
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Tick - Ha. I am in NY but would love to work at arctic cat!
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
You're in my prayers after reading this thread.
Best,
Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
crosshairsoops, I mean prayers also.RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I can't imagine how much more efficient my day could be if everyone cared enough to do their job correctly.
I have two parts on my screen right now trying to mate them. One models holes are ordinate dimensioned, the other models are located on a bolt hole circle. Of course, they are .000004 off and will not mate, so I have to repair the problem. I swear I do that 20 times a day.
The other parts I have are not modeled correctly. They are .495 wide and the holes are located from the left side, the connecting part is .505 wide and the holes are located from the right side.
UGHGHG! Either model it line to line and tolerance it on your print with a limit dimension or model it to the size you already did and put the planes in the middle of the part locating the holes from the middle of the part so it all lines up!!
The problem here is everyone is thinking in 2-d mode. Hell, they still bring up Cadra every day and will even create new parts in Cadra sometimes.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Sounds like you need some drawing standards in place, and a checking function to boot. Of course communication and common sense also plays a roll. But you know what they say about common sense, it's a misnomer......
Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Unless the geometry of your parts are weird, you should mate faces, one hole, and make two features parallel. Then look at the other holes to see if anything does not line up.
The problem with pitch circles is that on some parts, a pitch circle is a good specification, and on other parts, they are not. Some people insist that the dimension shown on the fabrication drawing must exactly match the model.
So now, we have a round flange with a six hole pitch circle, attached to a complex, flat plate. We convert all the the flat plate holes to rectangular co-ordinates to simplify fabrication and inspection. We correct the holes on the model to exactly match the fabrication drawing. The flange continues to be dimensioned as a pitch circle. For production, on both parts, we remove the parametric sketch constraints.
The results of all this passes manual checking. The parts can be assembled. The only problem is that there is a positional discrepancy in your holes of some value less than your decimal accuracy.
Think about it. Even if you can mate two holes, you cannot mate the other four.
Just for the record, my approach on the plate would be to model the pitch circle, and apply the dimensions as rectangular co-ordinates. The results would assemble by your procedure. They would pass manual checking and the parts would assemble, however, there would be a discrepancy between some of the actual features, and the fabrication drawing. This discrepancy will be less than your decimal accuracy.
JHG
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
If you have some authority... exercise it!
If your boss won't back you... climb the ladder.
Technically, that's creating a hostile work environment & if your HR department won't fix her, you have other options... Spend a little Google-time on it.
And I hope you're not the type of "goober" that likes to exaggerate to make a story interesting.
Really... SCREAMING...? I doubt she was SCREAMING.
When you exaggerate, you loose credibility... IMHO. FAQ376
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
FAQ376
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
They shortcut things like old 2d ways all the time and screw themselves.
And now.. it looks like I am going from Solidworks admin to learning an new software doing a new job.
I was proud of being the best we had for SW.. but not it seems that it was worthless.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I am guessing it will be catia or ideas or nx3. Probably one of the first two.
I am sure within a few months I will forget most of my solidworks knowledge. What a shame.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Also, he never forgot SW.
Keep you head up!
Best,
Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Just be prepared to be getting lots of calls from the SW crew until they find a replacement.
Will you still be in the same location? Could SW not be used for designing the product?
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08; CATIA V5
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I was moved 2 months ago to a NEW department to find ways to save energy (electric, gas). I have done great work and saved ton with proposals. They picked me because they know I do that stuff to my house haha.
Anyways, now they are laying off again and I got moved instead of shut down. I am honored to still be here but scared also. I do NOT want to lose my solidworks skills. I LOVE solidworks and pride myself in my accomplishments in it.
We have laid off over 50% of people at this location and we were at 1600 employees a couple years ago.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I was one of the top SW users at my last job and now I'm using Inventor at a new job. Most CAD softwares are pretty similar in terms of the basics and I'm sure you'll be a power user of the new software in no time. Heck, I've been using Inventor for 3 months now and feel like I know it better than people who have been using it for 5 years. Oh the wonders of building models right the first time...
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
It's not the software, it's your personality, your drive ... it's who/what you are.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
It's the little things.. Like creating a picture how-to and putting it on the network for everyone to use in the future. Every time someone asked me for help on a complex task, I helped them and then made a how-to and put it in a folder on the network for them.
Now, there is nobody enforcing modeling rules... so the person this thread was made about will be doing things like extruding .005 off the side of a part to make it wider, or rolling a feature tree backwards to remove the last two features, or modeling parts at .99995 and not having the planes in the center, or manually typing in the title block so the part has NO properties, or even manually editing (typing!) a BOM on a print so it says what she wants it to say with the dash number she wants, or not using design tables or configurations and creating 15 versions of a part that just gets .125 thicker (then of course 15 different drawings, or my favorite- create a BOM in excel and do not create any assemblies for a new machine. Just type up a BOM that is the same as a similar machine and add 10 parts to the BOM.
Sorry, I vented a little there :).
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Eric
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
Well I just got word. Sounds like I will be sent to training for I-deas and then when our customer stops using that I will be sent to training for NX5.
I tried finding a free download of I-deas online to get a headstart at home but no luck.
RE: Employee rolled alot of feature trees backwords
I went the other direction. I was a longtime I-DEAS user and transitioned to Solidworks. I-DEAS will be a bit different, but the methodology you use in Solidworks is the same. When I was making the transition (about 5 years ago) I thought I-DEAS was a more powerful tool - not sure how the two compare today.
There will be user interface adjustments that you might struggle with but ultimately you will do fine.