Advice on SolidPdm

[johnpshiell]

My company purchased 5 seats of QuicksilverDDM last year. We didn’t get round to installing it because of procedual updates taking place. When we were ready to install Quicksilver, I contacted the reseller to enquire about updates to the software. He then dropped the bombshell that Quicksilver DDM will not be supported by Solidworks in the future. The reason for this is the fact that Solidworks corporation have brought out the developers of SolidPDM, and are aggressively marketing that product. It seems to me that the logical option left open to me was to take up his offer of swapping the software at no charge. I was happy with Quicksilver's functionality, but now I am trying to find out exactly what SolidPDM is capable of. I have a few Questions,

1, Can you configure SolidPDM to automatically populate drawing sheets. Is this customisable for any custom property? Can you create material data that will appear during auto population?
2, Can you customise the phases of design with your own procedures. Also can you use any characters for issue control. IE Alpha, Numeric or a combination of the two?
3, Can SolidPDM handle different configurations.
4, Quicksilver Explorer allowed non solidworks users to view and print drawings etc. I understand that I would need to purchase additional seats to allow production staff to do this with SolidPDM. Is this true? Could you not use Solidworks Viewer?

Thankyou in advance for any information you can provide,

John Shiell

 

[Arlin]

Are you sure your VAR said SWX aquired SolidPDM??? SolidWorks recently aquired PDMWorks. They now offering PDMWorks as part of the SolidWorks Office Pro package.

I doubt that QuickSilver will stop supporting SWX anytime soon. They are a Certified Gold Product.

Are you sure your VAR said QuickSilver would no longer be supported within SWX? My guess is your VAR actually switched from selling QuickSilver to selling SolidPDM. Maybe it is your VAR and not SWX that no longer supports QuickSilver.

Sorry to answer with more questions, but I think the situation needs more clarification.

 

[johnpshiell]

Sorry you are correct. I have been looking at so many Data management products!! I meant to say PDM works for previous message. My VAR definitely said that Quicksilver will lose its Certified Gold Product rating on future Solidworks upgrades, and that the developers of Quicksiler would concentrate on other cad packages and hence support of the solidworks version will suffer.

Regards,

John

 

[Arlin]

Well, that makes a little more sense...

As far as QuickSilver stopping or reducing their support for SWX, it is certainly possible...

But, QuickSilver is a SWX only PDM. It does not support any other CAD packages (yet??). Furthermore, Zeal Solutions (

http://www.zeal-solutions.com),

the creators of QuickSilver, appear to be committed to SolidWorks.

Anyway, I am not a user of QuickSilver or even any other PDM system. I just had not heard that QuickSilver was "going under" as your VAR seems to suggest.

I hope they continue to survive. I am in favor of a more 'capitalist' business model in which there are multiple options for add-on solusions like PDM. It gives us, the customers, more choices and promotes advancement through competition. I don't want SolidWorks to become an all-in-one solution for modeling, PDM, FEA, MFG... I think we are better served by companies who continue to innovate and reduce costs to compete. Plus, this allows SWX to concentrate on a smaller focus, producing a good core modeling product.

I am a bit concerned about SolidWorks' aquisitions of PDMWorks and COSMOSWorks. It goes against my wishes and makes SWX look more like Microsoft or PTC.....

 

[Standing]

John Shiell,
If SolidWorks PDM/Works is what you are looking into, this is what I have to offer.
We like PDM/Works; it gives us enough control, but not too much control, so that Engineers cannot ask for a lot of extras.
1. If SolidWorks does it, the PDM will file it. The PDM does not add any functionality to SolidWorks. PDM/Works will vault AutoCAD drawings, M$Word documents, Visio, Excel and etc.
2. We use revisions, A01-01, P01-01 and R01-01. A is for Alpha, P is for Preliminary, and R is for Released. The dash – number is automatically updated, but controllable. While the A, P and R 01’s are manually updated and controllable. I believe there are other options as well.
3. PDM/Works handles our configurations nicely.
4. When we purchased PDM/Works it was $500 per seat. We purchased a seat for everyone that needed it. PDM/Works, I believe, can float a seat. You can get what is called a Web portal (at $5000) that will let anyone you authorize to view and print documents, or you can save them as eDrawings. The eDrawings viewer is free and will help keep eDrawings sizes down.

Disclaimer: I do not sell or know everything about the PDM/Works. Please verify with your VAR any questions or statements said here.


Bradley