Assembly/BOM needs....

[selarose]

We manufacture pool enclosures and the parts are all designed by us. During our R&D phase, we did all of our design and assembly/BOM requirements using Autocad. Well, now we are done with designing parts and just need to start mass producing our buildings. The span changes the sizes of our trim and and glazing and structural members. We need to automate the assembly and BOM requirements, but i have no experience with 3D. Which program is the strongest at assembly/BOM?

Let me know if you need more information to help me go in the right direction. The busier we get, the more chance of making human errors with the BOM because right now we do that manually by looking at the drawing and counting. Then that count gets transferred to the spreadsheet which gets sent to the shop floor for production.

Thanks in advance.

Cihan

 

[WhitneyPaine]

I use Solidworks and truly believe that it is very strong in this area.

In actual fact, it just got stronger because with the 2009 release you can now create BOM's in assembly and multibody part files without having to create a drawing first.

Full information on page 70 of this document:

http://files.solidworks.com/Supportfiles/Whats_new/2009/English/whatsnew.pdf

Whilst beating the Solidworks drum, it includes features that allow easy importation, malipulation and upgrading to 3D of 2D AutoCAD files. In plain English, changing the 2D to 3D is a breeze if you know what you are doing.

If you need variations of a particular design, it has features that help with that also.

If you need any in depth help, by all means contact me. My details are on my profile.

Regards

WP

http://www.whitney-paine.com

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

If you are asking whether SolidWorks will be suitable for automating your BOM needs across different configurations, the answer is yes. The same can also be said about Solid Edge, Inventor, CoCreate Modelling, Pro/E, etc, except they will do it in slightly different ways. You will not be making a mistake if you select any of those.

There will be a substantial unlearning/relearning curve involved for all of them if this is your first foray into the 3D world.

 

[WhitneyPaine]

For malipulation, please substitute manipulation......that will teach me to fire of a reply on the hurry up!

Regards

WP

http://www.whitney-paine.com

 

[WhitneyPaine]

And for of I mean off......Blimey, this could go on forever!

Regards

WP

http://www.whitney-paine.com

 

[Areva]

From my experience using 2D AutoCAD when users generate BOMS they are prone to drafting errors i.e. wrong qty’s, wrong balloon references etc. Time taken working out part quantities, typing part numbers and descriptions becomes slow, inefficient and tedious. When subsequent changes take place any drawing views have to be manually updated along with the BOM.

Solidworks generates the BOM from the assembly file, your views come for free and balloon references are correct and, being a parametric modeller, changes to the assembly model will automatically update all views, balloon references, quantities and descriptions.

You are less likely to have drawing errors using a 3D modeller like Solidworks.

We moved away from designing in ACAD in 2001 to SW and estimate an improvement of up to 30% efficiency for CAD output. ACAD is used now only to generate wiring diagrams and artworks for silk screens.

Eddy

 

[selarose]

Areva-

Thanks for your response. It helps me in making a choice. I think you understood that what i am looking for is a robust program that can handle up to 10,000 parts (not all unique) with no struggles and still provide the BOM list for manufacturing.

I just want to make sure that i am not overlooking perhaps a different software that is more suited towards assembly and BOM. It seems as though all of the literature on Solidworks and Inventor stress "part design" and the assembly/bom ability of the software is not the main focus.

Thanks again!

Cihan

 

[JMirisola]

To take things one step further, you may want to take a look at DriveWorks or TactonWorks. Both are SolidWorks Gold Partner software products that work in conjuction with SolidWorks and help with the automation of assemblies. With both, a form is filled out and SolidWorks will then generate the necessary parts, assemblies and drawings.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP, Certified DriveWorks AE

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog

 

[GBor]

While we are throwing in other ideas, look at SolidWorks "Configurations". Inventor has something similar, but it may reduce the number of working models that you have to have. Instead of a model for each size, you can set up a design table with variable dimensions for different lengths of members. If a new size comes in, plug a new line in to the design table, select it, and let it rebuild the BOM. You can even turn members on and off for different configurations. Conceivably, one model could do it all.

 

[selarose]

Thanks again, and I will look into those suggestions and add-in programs.

Cihan

 

[MadMango]

You want to also consider upgrades to your current computer systems if moving from 2D CAD to 3D CAD, no matter which 3D CAD system you decide upon. Which ever reseller you purchase your 3D CAD system from, they should offer local support and training. Make sure you utilize these services.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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