USING SOLID EDGE TO CREATE ASSEMBLY WORK INSTRUCTION

[KENAT]

I've been using Solid Edge to create Engineering drawings since 1999.

I've also been using it for almost as long to create illustrations for various types of manuals and technical documents. However, up until now I'd always turned them into images (jpeg, tiff etc) and pasted that into a word document. Often I'd delete the temporary draft file or at least within the document control systems I've had there's never really been a way to control the SE doc that fed the images of the word doc.

Anyway to the point, we are now going to create detailed assembly instructions in Solid Edge Draft itself.

A. Has anyone done this before and if so do you have any tips/ideas on specific techniques or SE tools/functions that work well?

B. Specifically we'll probably end up with a lot of either exploded views or maybe a lot of views with various components hidden. Any tips or ideas on this, for instance is it better to hide components in the drawing view properties display or is a better idea to create configurations within the model itself which then feed drawing views?

We were looking at using interactive product animator for this, a software that uses the SE model but then has some semi automatic functionality for creating step by step assembly instructions. However time/money/enthusiasm ran out so were doing it in SE.

Thanks,

Ken

 

[EricatNordic]

from what I understand and have experienced, you will get faster performance setting up a configuration and then making a draft view of it, then you will by putting the whole assembly in the draft view and surpressing most of it.

 

[KENAT]

Thanks Eric, that sounds about right thinking about it.

 

[PatCouture]

I really think that you should use the display configurations it's easier to hide the parts when you see them instead of looking for the right name in a list sorted by alphabetical order with only a preview to help you. Also if you need to recall the same parts but for another point of view the display configuration is still available instead of having to hide again the parts that you don't want to see.

Good luck

 

[HDS]

don't forget you to create a saved view for every configuration with the same name as the configuration.

My experience says that work instructions often require showing things like hands and tools that can be easier done by taking digital pictures of an actual build.

 

[KENAT]

Thanks Pat & HDS, I think we're going down the route of saving configurations and we started looking at saved views.

Historically here work instructions have been done the way you say HDS with lots of phtotos of actual builds. It has been found that this is time consuming and so we're trying to find a more efficient way, at least for the smaller assemblies. For larger assemblies where there is a lot going on we may have either hybrids or stick with just photos. Also using the models will allow us to have our first draft of the instruction prepared before we have hardware available, we can then refine it on prototype build.

Part of the problem is that previously here many assy drawings doubled as work instructions, sadly this meant that drawings didn't comply with ASME standards, and were neither Arthur or Martha, they weren't complete assy instructions nor were they full engineering drawings and this has caused problems. We've now taken the decision to follow ASME standards but it means there's a larger requirement for work instructions.

I'm thinking we'll end up with something like you get in flat pack furniture but we'll see how it turns out.

Thanks again for the input.

 

[HDS]

The saved views are so that you can go back to the drawing and make changes later without loosing the original view orientation. Also to get the drawings to update you have to go into to the view properties and check the configurations then update.

 

[KENAT]

Thanks HDS, we'd started to realize that, having had the problem of losing the original view orientation.

One area I'd appreciate any input on: Drawings & models are rev controled and stored in a secure area where we can't change them. To rev them we take a copy out, do the change and then submit under an ECO.

It is possible/likely that we will need to change work instructions without there needing to be a rev to the drawing. If we're using configurations & named views within the model the feed the work instruction draft how can we do this without requiring a rev of the drawing/model.

I was thinking of:

1. Only changing the config file but this could potentially still change the drawing if any drawing views are created off of configurations you change so should probably be rev controlled.

2. Have a separate config file for when working with the work instruction but I'm not sure this would work having done a little investigation.

3. Make a 'dummy' assy file to feed the work instruction, essentially an assembly for which the only component is the actual assembly file you're creating the WI for. However this is an extra file to control and I'm wondering if it would make some of the smart text options more difficult to use in draft.

Any thoughts welcome.