Fasteners in PDMWorks (Good Idea / Bad Idea)

[EEnd]

I am close to talking myself into placing all of our common purchased parts, including ones derived from the toolbox into PDMWorks. We currently have the toolbox set up to create copy parts. We then rename, cleanup and move it to our design library. Well that is what is supposed to happen. Other common parts, including ones we model and ones we download, typically end up in the vault under the project where they are first used. I think it would be better if these parts were in a single location, either the design library or the vault.

Advantages of putting them in the vault include:
[ol]
[li]Eliminates ambiguity caused by the file existing in both the network design library and the users local directory. I have tried removing a couple of fasteners from the vault, but they have been replaced when other users who still have the files on their hard drives check in assemblies which use them.[/li]
[li]Easier to rename. They often get used in assemblies without getting renamed to match the naming scheme.[/li]
[li]The library can be restructured without breaking assemblies. Currently moving a part to a different directory in the design library causes assemblies to prompt for the file’s new location.[/li][/ol]

I do not think it will change the amount of network traffic. Either the part gets copied (1 read) during checkout, or it gets opened over the network when the assembly gets opened (1 read).

I see one downside. The project names must be unique, and this will make it slightly harder to construct a tree inside of the vault. For example, in the design library I could have SHCS\4-40 and CRPH\4-40. Creating the 2 4-40 sub projects will require a little tweaking. One possible structure would be SHCS\SHCS 4-40 and CRPH\CRPH 4-40. It is not the end of the world but not entirely clean either.

I initially worried about bogging down / overwhelming the vault, but it is only another 400 – 500 files.

So, am I missing anything here? Has anyone else gone this route? It is a bad idea?

Eric

 

[jassco]

Hi,

It is a good idea to put them in your Vault. But it is a bad idea to use intelligent naming conventions for folder names and part files.

Best regards,

 

[JMirisola]

I question the logic in putting off the shelf parts of any sort in the vault, never mind "intelligent" naming conventions. However, I'll skip the usual diatribe about your naming convention and just talk about your fasteners.
The SolidWorks toolbox has come a long way and I would suggest using that. No matter what your naming convention may be, I can't think of a single good reason to use multiple copies of a 1/4-20 x 1 hex head cap screw, all with different names. Your purchasing department must hate the engineering department. Even if you choose not to use toolbox, how many different iterations of the same fastener does one need?
I take it from your original question that every single part in an assembly conforms to some convoluted naming structure. I have to know what the reasoning is behind this. I'm very curious.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[fcsuper]

If you have more than a few people using your vault, I would recommend putting files into the vault, though not necessarily Toolbox files. If you apply part numbers to your file names, you'll only have one version of each fastener in your vault.

Matt Lorono, CSWP
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion
Follow me on Twitter

 

[Simon205]

We've put all of our fasters in our Vault - in one project folder called 'common componentry'. Each component is given a part number just like anything else; this means that if somone want to check in something 'standard' it still gets a part number that is referred to by purchasing and other areas of business.

It works pretty well providing everone in the design dept is conscientions enough to follow the same system (and not check-in random names).

 

[EEnd]

Thanks for all of the input.

Jeff,
My main reasons for putting off the shelf parts into the vault are: they have to be somewhere commonly accessible and some of them end up there anyway. The intent is not to maintain revision history.

We use the toolbox as a fastener generator. It is set up for a multi user environment with the create copy option selected. To some degree the “intelegent” naming convention originated with the names assigned to the fasteners by the toolbox. Thread thread559-176921 leads me to believe that SW has changed this convention at least once between versions.

We do not intentionally create multiple copies of the same toolbox fastener. The primary modification that we make to the file name is to include a material specification. The same size fastener in different materials is what I would consider one of a very few good reasons to have differently named files of the same fastener geometry. The different files would have different properties including its part number.

We do not have a naming scheme for most parts. The bulk of the parts have names like: baseplate, front cover, switch bracket, etc. Part numbers get assigned near the end of the design and we add the number as a suffix to the file name to make it easier to keep them unique.

I avoid creating intelligent naming schemes as there are almost always exceptions. However the ability to locate an existing fastener from the information you have when you decide to use it requires some mapping between type, size and material to file name. I think having this information in the file name and creating a hierarchical directory structure to guide users to the file seems like as simple and easy a solution as any.

I know the toolbox provides this mapping for the fasteners that it contains, but we do use some that are not included in the toolbox. I reproduced the hierarchy of the toolbox in the design library that the fastener files are pulled from. That way the users only need to know one structure.

This discussion is useful to me and I welcome any additional comments.

Thank you,
Eric