What Drafting Standards do International Companies Use?

[scotty7]

If a multinational company has drafting offices in both the US and Europe, India or the Far East, what drafting standards do they use (e.g. ANSI, ISO, etc), particularly if parts drafted in different regions are used in the same final product?
I guess there are as many different answers as there are companies, but I'm trying to get a feel for the field.

 

[ctopher]

The company I worked at (USA) used the ANSI/ASME stds, and the sister companies in other countries had to learn how to read our dwgs. And the other way around. I say whoever creates the dwgs, use whatever that nation's stds use.

Chris
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[Jabberwocky]

We have drawings coming from both US and France (multiple places in France actually). They use ISO standards and we try to stick to ANSI (small office so not quite formal yet). We have never had problems with their drawings (once the text was translated) although we do stick to first-angle projection here.

I think a "good" drawing will hold up almost anywhere in the world. The different standards just try to enforce a common language to define "good." Inevitably you will get calls from the supplier anyways, so just make sure you speak their language!

 

[Heckler]

Oveseas companies are usually mandated to use the adopted standards of the country they're located. For example, We were having an air/oil seperator designed and manufactured by Dunlop Fluid Systems in the UK. I knew my design parameters but had to work with their drafting standards and material specifications. It created some degree of pain when I had to do material spec research. If I remember correctly they called out BS130.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
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[Heckler]

One more thing! When I first started interfacing with European companies Projection Angle always use to trip me up.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
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(_)/ (_)

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." - Henry Ford

 

[looslib]

At Ingersoll Rand Road Development when we set up our PDMLink system for global usage, we specified that all drawings would be using ISO standards. The only difference in US created drawings and Germany created drawings was the first/third angle projection. India was a design shop to both US and German plants and used the projection of their customer.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

 

[Tunalover]

Lowell Foster said that ASME Y14.5M-1994 is becoming the defactor internation standard for dimensioning and tolerancing. The equivalent ISO standards are practically identical. There are a dozen or so ISO standards (each expensive) that ollectivley provide the intent of ASME Y14.5M-1994.



Tunalover

 

[alexit]

We use modified ISO, (two difference: keep all dimensions horizontal not rotating with angle and use view direction arrows to keep away projection confusion.) Never had complaints.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Hey looslib, if you're allowed to discuss it I'd love to hear more about your global PDMLink. We are trying to come up with a good way to link our French and US design teams and don't really know where to start.

We have a copy of PDMWorks (Solidworks is used at all locations) but don't use it here because we're too small (in-house) to make it efficient. Can that application be used via an Internet-accessible database to have a global 'vault' with all the drawings in it? Is there a different application you use?

I suppose I should start a new thread, but this one seems relatively topical.

 

[looslib]

Since we did the global thing with Pro/E Wildfire and Windchill PDMLink, I am not sure how similar the configuration would be to PDMworks and SolidWorks.
Maybe you should ask this question in the SolidWorks forum.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

 

[castermaster]

Our experience with US and Euro firms & drawings indicates that there is almost no difference between ASME and ISO drawing standards other than 1st vs. 3rd angle projection. There are however some style differences (we do it this way, they do it that way, etc).

On PDM ... Solidworks PDMworks with the "Advanced Server" option (more $) allows a web portal into your PDM database from any web browser anywhere. I believe it is also security configurable for access passwords and read vs. write access.

cd