setting up PDM Works - any advice?

[Simon205]

Hello,

We've just upgraded our two SolidWorks 2005 seats (four potential users) to Office Professional and I'm about to undertake the task of setting up PDM Works.

Any recommendations from experienced users would be appreciated with regards to file structure etc.... (we are a manufacturing company designing and making a range of different products)

I've run a small 'pilot' version from my C: drive on a couple of small projects and found it not very useful in storing Word docs, pictures, etc.. as checking in/out & ownership issues seem a bit tiresome. Does anyone else share this view?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Simon

 

[SolidsMaster]

Simon,
It may seem a bit tiresome at first, only until you see the benefits after awhile. Be happy you are getting it now, and not later. No, I don't share your view on PDMW. Just try any main-frame ERP system and you'll see what I mean. Now for question:

The stucture is very flexible, setup your main projects first, and keep those read only at the top, under that put the folders that you will have the actual files reside in. This avoids files dangling down after a long list of projects. Then setup for Projects for different standard parts like Electronics, Hardware, Circuit Boards, etc. and have the specifics under them. I would add in a Miscellaneous folder under each also. Pdm works work better with multiple project folders, so don't be afraid to create many.

You'll also want to get the vault and service off your PC and onto the server before it gets to big.

All in all, it's simpler than you think compared to everything else out there. Hope that helps.

Oh yeah, and get a good filename convention going. If you have drawing numbers use them!!! and use the custom properties, it's too valuable a tool, and keeping track of something called bracket.sldprt is insane in company environment.

John

 

[ctopher]

I agree. There are also videos you can watch that may help.

http://www.solidworks.com

search for PDMWorks

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[engAlright]

As with any database type system, it's crucial that you set as much up ahead of time as you can. It becomes very difficult to change the format of things after you've got 10,000 documents in the system under a different format. This includes the following:

-Revision scheme
-custom properties i.e. descriptions
-lifecycle
-file naming

For projects - try to have as little intelligence as possible in project names so you have flexibility and don't go crazy adding a bunch of projects right off the bat. It's easier to add folders later than to delete them. PDMW provides a pretty good search tool, so folders are only really useful to speed up display & startup time anyway.

Also carefully consider how much power you want to give to the users:

-rename documents?
-delete documents?
-create projects?
-toggle Read/Write status of the file based on ownership?

It's always hard to take rights away from people once they have them.

Just my 2 cents!

 

[Simon205]

Many thanks for the advice, I'll use the points in the pilot version and see how we get on,

Regards,

Simon