PDM Works -What is it?

[dogarila]

There are about 16 designers in our mechanical design department half of them trained in SolidWorks and IronCAD and the other half trained only in IronCAD.

1. I would like also to get the right words in convincing the management to stick with just one solid modeling program and that should be SW and not IronCAD.

2. I would like to get a quick overview of PDM Works from people who actually use it, with advantages and disadvantages and maybe some ideas on how to convince my management to purchase it.

 

[ctopher]

Before we had PDMW, we saved all files with the rev after the file name. This became cumbersum after a while because the server became full of files. It was also hard to track which part went with which assy. PDMWorks keeps track of which parts work will which assy's and dwgs, tracks rev updates, keeps history of revs and will allow ownerships of files...allowing only one person to change a file at a time. Works great! good luck

 

[Standing]

Netshop21,
You must talk dollar savings with management.
We saved thousands of dollars because with PDM we do not overwrite each other’s work. Before PDM the first engineer getting in, would open an assembly and it would lock the file. We would have to put extra work into opening subassemblies. Then some engineers would just copy the whole assembly and all parts to some place on the network. Just before switched over to PDM Works we had as high as 27 models of the same part over the network. We started writing rules in the beginning, but really had no way to enforce them. What a mess.
With PDM everyone takes ownership of what they are changing. We do not have as nearly as many problems. The best advantage for me is having the view feature while looking for a part. PDM lets me search for part of a name, say relay. I find the relay and can open the assembly it is used in very easily. SolidWorks PDM truly has saved me time. The cost of the software is low and the savings are great. The software is easy to setup.


Bradley