Data management strategies

[hygear]

This thread is a follow up to a thread I started last year: here

I realize that I forgot to answer one of the fundamental questions that was asked: how many users? At my current job there are about 300 engineers, and there were about 1000 at my previous job.

Now it has been about a year since my last post and since that time I have convinced one of the managers that we need to investigate improvements to our current data management system. This is primarily due to the fact that I recorded the time we actually wait for our current system to perform a function and came up with an average of 2 hours per day. Because of this, I wanted to ask everyone a few questions so that I will have some data to compare when I talk to the manager again:

QUESTIONS
1. What version of Pro/E or Creo are you currently using?
2. What data management system are you currently using?
3. Does your current data management system restrict the use of any Pro/E functions (we currently can't handle family tables, flexible components, mechanism, manikin, or pro-piping)
4. Do you make use of the ModelCheck feature before checking models into the system? In other words, are you allowed to check-in "dirty" models (suppressed features, incorrect layers, circular references, etc.) ?
5. Is your working directory on your local workstation or on a remote server?
6. When you are working on the subsystem of a large assembly, are you required to check-out the entire large assembly? If you retrieve the subsystem and it relies on other data in the large assembly to load correctly, how is this handled (i.e. is the extra data pulled from a read only data share)? Please explain your situation in detail.
7. Does your current system require you to pick a saving directory in the data vault when you first create a file? In other words, when your working directory is already set and you create a new part and give it a name, are you forced by the system to pick where it will be stored?
8. Does your current system stay connected to your Pro/E session at all times, or is it only in use when you are checking-in/checking-out data?
9. When you are ready to clean up your working directory, what do you use to purge it (Pro/E, external program, etc.) and how long does it take?
10. Does your current system require you to lock files when you check them out with the intention of updating them? If two people check out models and update them but only one person locks the files, who gets to check the data in?
11. Does your current system block you from saving files when it loses its internet connection?
12. Does your current system allow you to rename parts in sessions or save existing assemblies under a new name?
13. Does your current data management system integrate well with Pro/E? In other words, can you access/use functions of the system within Pro/E?
14. Does your current system make use of helpers/wizards to guide the user through the processes they wish to preform?

Thanks!

 

[looslib]

1. Pro/E Wildfire 4 m220, planning upgrade to Creo 2 m100+

2. Windchill 10.0 m040, planning upgrade to Windchill 10.2 m030+

3. No, if yours does, it needs replacing

4. ModelCheck is built-in to the workflow at check-in time. Every model, assembly and drawing is checked before being filed. We do not force corrections by rejecting the check-in, though that is an option.

5. Local computer, no network traffic to contend with. Working cache should always be local.

6. Windchill only ‘requires’ you to check out the parts that you are changing. Standard design practices drive you to open some additional files to complete your changes.

7. Since we have many folders for our designs, we default to a common folder, but encourage and remind the designers to select the proper folder.

8. Our designers stay connected to Windchill the whole time they are in Pro/E. I discourage the work offline concept.

9. I recommend that the designers check-in, remove all files and dlete their workspaces on a regular basis. I prefer it done weekly, but some have been known to keep workspaces alive for 6 months or more.

10. Windchill will allow you to modify any file in your workspace eithout checking it out. If someone else checks it out, your workspace will be flagged. I recommend that you check out any files in your assigned change when you start working on the task.

11. Reconnect and then do the check-in

12. Both Save-as and rename are menu options with Pro/Engineer. The designer MUST know the implications of each command.

13. Windchill opens in Pro/E. Totally integrated.

14. Not sure what you want here? Windchill check-in has a form that opens with the workflow. Submitting a file(s) for release also has forms that open for the process.


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

Ben Loosli