Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
(OP)
I work for a small oil/gas company for down hole tools (drilling). A little over 50 people. We recently converted from Parts & Venders to DBA & use Activault for all SolidWorks drawings. Right now I upload all released drawings, ECR's & ECN's, and cover sheets in the item master in DBA. A Cover Sheets is simply a form that I staple on the front of a folder that shows the drawing number, description, ECR/ECN numbers, start & finish dates, designer/engineer & changes made on that part. So we can easily see all the changes on that one part but when looking at the whole assembly, we have to gather all the parts folders and look at each cover sheet & ECN's. Our top assemblies have many sub assemblies and we would like to be able to see all the changes that were made in the whole assembly without having to dig through paper work. They are not willing to spend any money on a program so Ive been trying to come up with an excel spreadsheet. Does anybody have any spreadsheets already made or know of any free programs I can use?
Example – Tool built 6 months ago ( at Rev A) comes back for servicing/upgrade. Meantime there have been several ECNs released for that tool type which is now at Rev D. We need a document / record that will show all the changes (including affected sub assemblies) that need to be incorporated to the tool back for servicing, to bring it up to current revisions.
Our cover sheets do not show changes made in the sub assemblies, only changes made on that particual drawing.
Thanks,
Rose
Example – Tool built 6 months ago ( at Rev A) comes back for servicing/upgrade. Meantime there have been several ECNs released for that tool type which is now at Rev D. We need a document / record that will show all the changes (including affected sub assemblies) that need to be incorporated to the tool back for servicing, to bring it up to current revisions.
Our cover sheets do not show changes made in the sub assemblies, only changes made on that particual drawing.
Thanks,
Rose





RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
True revision changes are fully backward & forward compatible so what rev part/assy is actually used should be irrelevant.
For a change that is not fully backward & forward compatible a new PN is assigned to that part/assy & the change should be chased up through the assembly structure changing part numbers until a fully interchangeable level is reached at which stage it is a rev.
In systems I've used, when the change to a part also required a new rev of the assy, both the assy & part changes were detailed on the assy.
I'm tempted to say part of the problem lies in having cover sheets that apparantly only show changes to an individual drawing.
While it might be possible I suspect an Excell file that does all you ask given the limitations of your structure could be pretty bulky. You'd need the BOM and/or 'used on' data entered and then be able to generate data from it.
Not sure it would help but we used a 'drawing list' in UK govt systems. For each deliverable/high level assy it was a list of all the drawings used to create it, both sub-assy's and parts with their rev. It was manually updated, basically when you rev'd a drawing you found out what Drawing Lists it was used on and also updated those on same ECO. It was prone to errors and labor intensive but, I've got to say compared to SAP that we use here wasn't that much worse, in some ways better.
KENAT,
Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
This company does ECR/ECN's for practically anything. I have recently started keeping track of small changes in Excel like description changes, title block changes etc, but when a change is form, fit or function, the designers and engineers make a ECN on that part to keep from pulling new numbers. I have to figure out how to work with their system.
In the assembly cover sheets, I tried adding all ECN's even in sub assy's but its starting to look messy.
I have thought about taking the BOM's that are in DBA and saving them as Excel files and somehow adding the ECN's in there.
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
Sorry should have been
"In systems I've used, when the change to a part also required a new rev of the assy, both the assy & part changes were detailed on the ECO."
Sounds like lax config control is causing some of your problem, once revisions become 'significant' it gets more complex.
Good luck.
KENAT,
Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
You wouldnt know of a free-cheap ECN program would you?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
It depends what you want from it.
My last place did it all paper copy, you could use word or excel or similar for that.
My current place uses something called filemaker but have been talking about changing it to an MS access based system for some time. Not sure I'd recomend either though.
KENAT,
Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
KENAT,
Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
It can report all ecns generated againt a PN with a click of a button. We paid $2500 plus another $1200 for an add-on a couple years ago. In my opionion a relational database is the only way to go. However, it seems more appropriate for "true" production mode and less for R&D. Therefore I am lookning to implement a "version control" app- Subversion (SVN)- for tracking development. When development is done we pull the design files for CM control.
The version control app requires good notes from the developers ( to record change notes...). Subversion is an "open source" app which seems to be used widely. I can supply links to web pages if requested.
RTaylor
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
While some people will say "I'll develop this using Access and port it to something else later", the basic DB schema must be laid out with multiple users in mind from the outset.
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly
The Access application we are using is multi-user, record locking...Have not come across any issues. I would prefer not to involve Access since we are looking to expand and not everyone has MS Access and our Access app is not compatible with Access2007. Does SQL server, MySQL require additional application/interfaces. I would prefer some "web"/Network based system.
Maybe we should switch this topic over to another forum?
RE: Keeping track of ECN's in a project assembly