Hose and tube routings using Express Route

[2curious]

What are some recommended practices for using Express Route. I just started working with a heavy vehicle manufacturer, and we use Express Route for all of our hydraulic and pneumatic tubes and hoses. All of our hydraulic routings are created in an single assembly using Express Route. Another assembly is used to create all of the routings for our pneumatic hoses. These routings are then used to create the hose and tube assemblies as separate files (this would include the hose/tube and the end fittings). There are dozens of routings in each of these files which causes the computer to run very slow. Also, the links created by Express Route wreak havoc with our PLM software. The computer gets confused when you try to save a file and gets stuck in a loop trying to "check out" files that it can't check out. It will give me the same check out error multiple times before it decides to give up after thirty minutes of trying. Do most companies use Express Route like this? In a large assembly, do you create dozens of hose and tube routings in a single file? Please help! I spend a majority of my day wrestling with Express Route.

 

[beachcomber]

Your method sound quite confusing and seems to me that you are doubling-up on your fittings.
If you need assemblies of tubes and fittings I would suggest creating these as sub-assemblies and using express-route in these assemblies. Then just attach them to your main assembly in the normal way.
You may have to position your fittings in the main assembly and transfer them down to the sub-asembly and ground them.
Then edit in-place the sub-assembly to create the tube.
Obviously there will be no assiciative positioning between fittings and main assembly using this method.

bc