duk748 said:
3 people who have been quoted as "sw experts" have taken over how we design engineers do things & make our models/assemblies - when things are not the way that the "experts" think they should be they take our designs & make changes w/o telling us or advising management when a design has already been approved & is only there to be detailed
Unfortunately I have been in the expert position and have done some of those things which you are having problems with. One way I addressed this was to hold training sessions once every week or so to promote everyone being on the same page.
Second, I promoted written standards so that everyone knew what was expected.
Now the term "make changes" that you use could be construed several ways. It could mean changing the form fit or function of the part by, say, changing a dimension. It could also be construed as changing the way the model was constructed while leaving the overall part or assembly geometrically identical to what was originally built. I would vehemently disagree with the first understanding of "make changes", but if it is the second you might do well to understand why they did what they did.
Changes I made to existing and sometime approved models included:
Improvements to mating schemes to take hours out of rebuild time and drawing regeneration times.
Improvements to better capture design intent.
Improvements to make parts rebuild faster or to meet standards such as configuration naming, adding simplified reps for use in assemblies, or even reorienting a part so it works with drawing automation.
I'm sure there were more than this.
I have found that if someone is an "expert" they will be willing to share the reasons. More importantly they will be willing to listen to you and work with you. I don't know everything and am always learning from others myself.
We have had several presentations in our user group about best practices and working in teams. As soon as there are two or more SW users in a company there will be three or mores ways things get done. Just human nature and the flexibility of SW. Flexibility can be a blessing or a curse. Be a hero and get a user group together in your plant or join a user group to figure out just what is the best practice and then present a plan to management.
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CSWP, BSSE
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