QTYs of raw material/deformable parts in parts lists

[rossob]

Hi all, I am just wondering how people out there handle quantities of deformable parts/raw materials in a parts list.

We have part families set up for a lot of our steel sections where we can use various lengths of these sections in an assembly simply by adding a deformed length. The problem we face is that the parts list reflects the number of instances a particular part is used in the assembly, but our purchasing system requires the length of the section in metres.

At the moment, we could possibly use, say, 4 x 75mm pieces of flat bar. Essentially we are only using 0.3m of that particular flat bar, although the QTY column shows a quantity of 4, so our purchasing system allocates 4m. Currently we have a comments column in our parts list where we manually type in, say, "1 x 750mm, 2 x 50mm, 1 x 320mm".

I am sure that people out there would have a better method of documenting this than how we are doing it. Would anyone care to share their ideas/methods?

Ross
NX6.0.1.5 WinXP SP2
TC V10.0.2.4
SolidWorks 2007

 

[hudson888]

I don't know that I fully understand your application but we employ a material column that for a peice of 4 x 75 would also quote the length in an attribute which we use in our parts lists.

Now as I understand it what you would like to do is add two deformable components of 4 x 75 bar with different lengths on the parts list. (Stop now and repost to clarify if I have misunterstood.)

Try adding an attribute and let's call it "material" for example's sake and assign it the text 4 x 75 x 100 in your bar component. Then when you create an assembly with two such components deformable to different lengths 50 and 150 your parts list if it includes a material column will list a quantity of 2 bars with the same material. But if you edit the material atribute at the assembly level you should get two seperate items of the same component with different materials and item numbers. You should edit it to read 4 x 75 x 50 and 4 x 75 x 150 respectively for each of the components, and the best way is by selecting them via the ANT.

Try it with a simple test example first and I think you'll be a little better off.

I had a tinker on your behalf using NX-5 and getting expressions drive attribute values or appear on a parts list does not appear to be an option as far as I can see. Realistically the above described option is fairly easy to work with anyway.

Best Regards

Hudson