Data management in an badly-organised company. 5

[daveparkinson]

Morning all,

Some of you may recall that I have asked about document management in the past (along with many others), and I got some great advice when I did. But this time it's a little different.

Over the past year or more, I have adopted Workgroup PDM (as a solo user), which was a great move. I have introduced a project based part numbering system which is mostly a dumb system. I'm happy with all of this.

My problem is this....

I work for a project based company. We build products for commercial vehicles (tipper bodies, trucks with cranes on, coachbuilding etc.), 50% of the products are drawn on SolidWorks (although most of the time not completely) and 50% are made up on-the-fly in the workshop.

A lot of the time I have some parts of an assembly, but then no clue how the rest was made. Other times I'm given a sketch with the description "Steel plate", "Gusset for Peter" etc. Asking the individuals for more information about the part usually gets me nowhere.

The problem is exacerbated because I am the solo draughtsman across two locations. If it were one location I might be able to go into the workshop and retrospectively create all the models on SolidWorks.

I've just realised that this is turning into more of a rant than a question, oh well...

Is anybody else in a similar situation? If so, how do you organise your work? What do you do with parts that are one-off's and will never be used again? What do you do when all you have of an assembly is a subframe and none of the superstructure (or your equivalent)?

I get a lot of satisfaction when I've created an product on SolidWorks, when I know it's done right, and when I know I can rely on it in the future. Unfortunately, these assemblies make up about 10% of my entire PDM vault. The rest is half-finished products, miscellaneous brackets and what not etc. I'm tearing my hair out! Every day feels like a battle.

Best regards folks,

Dave

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Would photos of the made-on-the-fly parts help?

 

[MadMango]

You can add as many folders in the Vault as you need to keep things organized. That's a great help when you start getting things like this. I like to try to document everything that comes across my desk. I have been burned in the past doing a quick model or drawing for a "one off" part or idea, only to be approached months later because the parts need to be made again and no one else kept their napkin sketch.

I have also created blank part models to serve as place holders in my partial assemblies in the past. I might not know the geometry of "bracket slotted", but at least I know that it goes in there somewhere, and it might jog someone else's memory.

The positive is you work solo, so you can make a system that works, rather than trying to fight with others that may be more disorganized than yourself.

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

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[rgrayclamps]

Hi, Dave:

Your issue here has nothing to do with Solidworks. You can build your products using documents created on napkin sketches, manual drawing board, AutoCAD, Solidworks, Pro-E and etc.

If you build products for commercial vehicles, you probably need to conform to ISO/TS 16949 standard. The standard requires you to document everything you need to build your products. Apparently you do not conform to this standard.

If I were you, I would scan all of documents related to your products, and assign a document number for each and every one of the documents, and then release them into your vault. These documents needs to be initialled and dated. They are considered the very first revision of the documents. Later on, you can redraw them in Solidworks through your revision process if necessary.

I have managed our vault for my company for many years. I never had this kind of issues. I would "lynch" someone who knowingly used a component without a proper documentation.

Scanning your documents is the way to go.

Good luck with yours!

Alex

 

[ewh]

As Alex points out, you may not be meeting the required standards (if you are subject to any). That may be your largest stick when attempting to change the habits of the shop floor.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[drawoh]

daveparkinson,

I have been in your situation. How badly does your boss want drawings?

People at your site are in complete control of their fabrication. They will lose this if there were complete drawings. You are a turf war. Even if you managed to do complete drawings, there is no guarantee that they will be followed.

You need to chat with your boss, and get a clearly defined mission. If you boss wants complete, accurate drawings, he is going to have to back you up.

JHG

 

[daveparkinson]

I think I might be trying to be too strict with my filing system. Thus far I have recreated an explorer style file structure in my vault, in which I try to organise everything nicely. Matt Lombard's SW Administration book warns against this, I am going to take his advice I think.

I will try to scan all information, and check it into a Miscellaneous project in my vault. At least then it is in the vault, and searchable.

Alex and MM make a good point about documenting all sketches that I'm given. So far I've put them into an A4 folder, along with any notes I write on them, and then the CNC sheet that I produce to cut the parts on our plasma machine (everything we make is sheet metal or plate). I think I'll get myself a scanner and start checking a scanned PDF into the vault as an attachment of each part, or use the Design Journal.doc

We are not subject to ISO/TS 16949. Although I've no doubt it would be beneficial. The management has no desire to do that. Besides, I spent 6 months setting up our ISO Quality system...I almost jumped off of the nearest bridge.

Drawoh. I do not think that my bosses understand how much a well executed system could benefit the company/design/manufacture process. Nor do they wish to find out. I want to organise my system to make my own life easier, and to educate myself for future jobs.

 

[daveparkinson]

I think I might be trying to be too strict with my filing system. Thus far I have recreated an explorer style file structure in my vault, in which I try to organise everything nicely. Matt Lombard's SW Administration book warns against this, I am going to take his advice I think.

I will try to scan all information, and check it into a Miscellaneous project in my vault. At least then it is in the vault, and searchable. As at the moment it is only stored in a windows folder.

Alex and MM make a good point about documenting all sketches that I'm given. So far I've put them into an A4 folder, along with any notes I write on them, and then the CNC sheet that I produce to cut the parts on our plasma machine (everything we make is sheet metal or plate). I think I'll get myself a scanner and start checking a scanned PDF into the vault as an attachment of each part, or use the Design Journal.doc - if nothing else it'll save paper

We are not subject to ISO/TS 16949. Although I've no doubt it would be beneficial. The management has no desire to do that. Besides, I spent 6 months setting up our ISO Quality system...I almost jumped off of the nearest bridge.

Drawoh. I do not think that my bosses understand how much a well executed system could benefit the company/design/manufacture process. Nor do they wish to find out. I want to organise my system to make my own life easier, and to educate myself for future jobs.

 

[daveparkinson]

Apologies for the double post.

 

[rgrayclamps]

Hi, Dave:

You are lucky that you are exempted from conforming to ISO/TS 16949. If I member correctly, all suppliers to auto and commercial vehicles makers need certification to this standard.

But also, if you make prints, you need to conform to ASME Y14 if you are in US.

Best regards,

Alex

 

[daveparkinson]

Hi Alex,

We do not supply directly to the auto market, and I am based in the UK. Getting this company to conform would be a nightmare task if we did! Although I'm sure it would benefit us in the long run.

Cheers

 

[steinmini]

I was in a situation like that, but using Corel for drawings. Minimal precision, 2D drawings, half drawn, half made up on-the-fly without drawings... I don't envy you.

Now I have about ten years of work and development to convert into usable documents... Manually creating new SW files from Corel and pdf files... for every bit and piece... 98% of all is custom made and can't be found as a finished model anywhere, even parts that are made by some other company...

It takes forever, but with every new 3D model I create, there's one less to go... Now I do all the drawings alone and have all the control over every single file. Maybe the hardest way, but at least it looks like sooner or later I'll have full control over every detail. Once the 3D model is finished, creating technical drawings for use in the workshop is a piece of cake. And they get it as a *.pdf. If anyone wants a change to be made, they have to use the magic word: "please..."

 

[tph216]

Hi Dave,

I've had exactly the same kinds of issues happen to me in my previous company (Chesterfield, UK). I came into a company much like yours, they had 1 seat of mechanical desktop, and I specified & got up & running a 2 seat SW Premium / PDMworks setup, which was a great improvement. Hard work though.

The problems you're having aren't anything to do with SW. They're to do with attitudes in your company. There will be people on your shop floor who do not want to relinquish control of their freedom to design things themselves 'on-the-fly'.

I had exactly the same at my company, whereby the bosses / management thought they could pick & choose which standards applied to them or not, and the shop floor didn't care as long as they could do what they want. That inevitably leaves someone like you and me left in the middle frantically trying to document everything as best as is possible. Not ideal.

I was going to mention ISO 9000. It's good that you've got it up and running, but it needs a lot of management support to succeed. As for your products standards, then, if your bosses attitude is anything like my old ones, they will be avoiding documenting anything until absolutely necessary. When that becomes necessary, is when someone requests to see your technical file for a product. His response to that is probably to compile on one the fly, and probably from the memories of people about at the time. Again not ideal. Atrocious, really.

BS 7000 (design management) might be worth a read, if you're really committed to trying to sort it all out. I found it helpful. And BS ISO 10007 (configuration management). I developed a design management system based on those at my old company, before leaving due to various differences. The number of arguments I'd had about significant vs non-significant part numbering systems was ridiculous!!

I would also 2nd the 'scan everything' suggestion. You can get pretty good photocopiers with scanners built in now, which email pdf's direct to you when you scan on them. Basic approach would be, for every new 'entity' (project), to assign it an identification number, and scan everything about it into the vault for safekeeping. Put some key words in the description field to enable better searching later if you can.

Ultimately though, you're battling with organisational culture, and not Solidworks. Your companies culture needs to change, or you need to move on to somewhere else where the culture suits your way of working more closely. You will be pleasantly surprised when you eventually get somewhere where things are done properly and the people all think like you and appreciate good organisation / documentation. I was.

 

[daveparkinson]

tph216,

You've managed to explain my situation better than I can!

I'll give BS 7000 and BS/ISO 10007 a read and see what I can take from them to implement here.

I think I can make my life a little easier if I improve my system, but I think the organisational culture won't change until the two chaps at the top see it as a problem. We are seeing some interest in our military products right now, I think that might push them along.

Moving on to somewhere else is my main goal at the moment, but while I'm here I may as well try to educate myself.

 

[daveparkinson]

Whilst I'm on the subject, can anybody see a problem with the following part numbering system.

Projects and Products etc. are identified by a four digit identifier, as below.

0236 - Project number
0236-101,102,103... - First, second, third component.
0236-001,002,003... - First, second, third assembly.

My assemblies are relatively small and generally have no more than 10 sub assemblies.

Common components identified by entirely dumb 5 digit number.

Supplied parts/assemblies use suppliers part numbers.

Sorry to bring up this old subject again!

 

[rgrayclamps]

Hi, daveparkinson:

I recommend you to read the following research report if you have not done so:

http://www.lib.umd.edu/drum/bitstream/1903/4441/1/TR_86-15.pdf

(link provided by treelovinghippy)

This topic was discussed recently at the link below:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=277096&page=5

Best regards,

Alex

 

[SteveMartin]

The only thing I would definitely argue against in your part number scheme is using supplier part numbers for their parts. What do you do if either: you can get the same part from two (or more suppliers)? or two parts from different suppliers of completely different items happen to have the same part number in each supplier's respective numbering scheme?

I see the first situation all the time (indeed, I believe it's company policy to have at least two sources for all 'off the shelf' parts if at all possible). I don't think I've actually run into the second, but I've had sets of suppliers where it was possible (two suppliers that use dumb numbers in the same size/range).

It wasn't my decision to make, but I'm much happier having an internal (as in defined by my company) part number for all components.

 

[tph216]

Dave,

You're numbering system seems sensible. The only time significant part numbering systems can ever work are when you are only wanting to do a 1-time communication of a product structure which is never going to change.

In my old company (much like yours), I argued against them for years. You need non-significant systems for the best degree of resilience to unpredictable events. As has been highlighted, you should even be using your own component numbers for standard parts. Then use the description field(s) to store the other manufacturers part number.

I work in a consultancy now, and we undertake 1-time design development projects for clients. So at the end of the project, if it involved a range of variants in a family, I might let a semi-significant numbering system be used. But only for part of the number.

So, for example:

40P900-501 - 40 inch class 900, main assembly
60P1500-501 - 60 inch class 1500, main assembly
72P2500-501 - 72 inch class 2500, main assembly

The last 3 digits are the non-significant part, and correlate between the ranges. So a -066 drawing number is always, say, a door forging (different sizes, maybe, but same entity in the product structure).

Now, my non-significant system I use in solidworks generally goes as:

xxxxxxx-yyyy

Where x's are the project number (someone elses system, which works well, and is not my responsibility), and y's are my non-significant suffix.

0500-0599 series are assemblies.
0000-0499 series are parts

I recently used 0600 series for 'special' assemblies. Alternate views or layouts of other assemblies. Combinations of loads of other assemblies stacked on a low loader for planning shipping consignments.

I tend to have 4 digit suffixes for development work, and for the final models I'll use 3 digit suffixes. Pack and go is handy for amending filenames like that.

I have lots of other things to handle too, which give me headaches. For instance, if I create a model of idealised geometry for FE analsis in Ansys, I'll generally take the original file xxxxxxx-yyyy.sldprt, and save a copy as xxxxxxx-yyyy-I01.sldpart. Make changes, analyse in ansys, come back to SW, tweak here and there, save copy as -I02, etc...etc... (Iteration 01, iteration 02 etc...).

It's always a work in progress though. I tinker about and see what works and what doesn't. I'm getting there I think.

Some other thoughts:

* If you're doing development work, you might want to have something that allows you to distinguish between development models, and final production models. This is debatable, however. In a truly significant system, they would all be on the same numbering system, and you would store other information to make that distinction.

* The numbers serve you, not you the numbers. Don't make decisions based on feelings about the numbers. If you have patterns forming (e.g. every -010 has been a 'left lower bracket'), and then suddenly one looks like it's going to be something else, then let it be something else. Also don't worry about numbers becoming redundant, and don't be tempted to reuse redundant numbers.

 

[fcsuper]

Create a physical folder with drawings of each part. Any modifications can be redlined in the folder. New parts can be added as sketches. You can then use it a reference to update your models, reprinting any changed drawings and adding new drawing as needed.

Matt Lorono
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solidworks & http://twitter.com/fcsuper

 

[tigermoth]

Dave,
I'm in a similar situation working for a heavy trailer manufacturer. We have a project folder for each vehicle or vehicle combination we build. Into the folder goes as complete a historical record as possible of everything to do with that vehicle ie photos, PDFs of calcs, drawings, sketches, certificates, etc. All office staff have at least read access to this info. We use semi-consistent naming conventions to assist retrieval of these. We still also have hardcopy versions of these folders. The AutoCad drawings and/or Solidworks models reside in a separate folder system, organised by function (eg Drawbars, Cabguards, Trailers etc) and are all regarded as potential 'standard parts' for re-use in the future (like a giant toolbox). Looking at PDM options at the moment - would Workgroup handle this kind of file organisation in your opinion?