Insight/Solid Edge for Sharepoint Concerns vs Teamcenter Rapid Start 1

[Aces24]

Hi, I've been a longtime lurker of eng-tips and I'm hoping to get your help. My company has 5 seats of Solid Edge,and is looking for a PDM solution for our 25,000 unmanaged CAD files (although most of these are old revisions). At previous jobs I have always used SolidWorks and Workgroup PDM. I liked the simplicity and ease that Workgroup provided for small companies that do not need a massive PLM solution.

I am now faced with the issue of this Insight/Sharepoint integration or Teamcenter Rapid Start. Teamcenter RS is about 4 times more expensive than Sharepoint in licensing costs and I am not sure I have the fire-power to push for it. However, we were quoted quite a high implementation cost for Sharepoint. I am hoping to get your help to address my concerns with Sharepoint or help me with firepower for Teamcenter Rapid Start.

I am worried about the core PDM functionality of Insight/Sharepoint. I am not fond of this revision scheme of saving revisions as _1, _2, etc., it is painfully similar to unmanaged/windows file structure revisions. I prefer however Workgroup/TCrs does it, it appears less chaotic. Can Sharepoint adequately manage obsoleting old revisions, making sure it pulls the latest revision, properly roll-back revisions, and update all assemblies when a revision to a part is made? It seems like in the limited demo we received you had to go to about 5 different screens with 5x button clicks to make a revision and it only appeared to make that revision in the open assembly? Can anyone shed some light on this?

How is the stability of Insight/Sharepoint? Does it require much work to keep it up? I generally equate high implementation cost to future high maintenance cost and we have limited IT support, buy maybe that is not the case. Finally, is the high implementation cost necessary? The Teamcenter Rapid Start documentation claims settings/workflows can be adjusted with wizards. Are sharepoint customizations easily made by the user/administrator or do they take that specialized Sharepoint knowledge?

Sorry for the long-winded post and thank you for the help.

 

[KENAT]

Can't answer in detail but something to consider.

What is the state of your data at the moment?

When we attempted to implement Insight/SharePoint we were stymied (in part) by the issue of tidying up existing date to fit the file naming convention, address duplicates, fix broken links...

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[Aces24]

Thanks, definitely a good thing to consider. Our data is a mess, but our agreement to management in order to get PDM is to only import clean data. So either way, we have that massive project ahead of us. We were hoping, however, to add data project by project as we clean it up. Not sure how feasible that is though.

 

[Kenny_G]

We use Insight, I have a working license of Solid Edge SharePoint, and I ran a pilot with TeamCenter a few years ago. First off you need to understand what each brings to the table and what each requires for ongoing maintenance.

Insight is a workgroup file manager for SE. There are no Items" and Item Revisions and Datasets, only SE files. Revisions are appended to the filename and there are Revision Rules to handle proper configuration management (same as in SESP and TC). There is no Change object or automated Change processes, thus it is semi-automatic requiring a Change Coordinator to Release CO's. It is easily set up and easy to use.

Solid Edge SharePoint is a more traditional PDM system with Items, Item Revisions, and Datasets. Revisions are appended to the filename and there are Revision Rules to handle proper configuration management. There are Changes and automated Change processes to release CO's. It is fairly easy to set up and fairly easy to use.

TeamCenter is just TeamCenter... The RapidStart is a template that helps configure TeamCenter. TeamCenter has all that SESP has but also has multi-cad integrations and capabilities, additional PLM functionality, multi-site, etc... It is not nearly as easy as the other two options to configure and is much more complex to use. I would only recommend this if you need the additional functionality.

Now as to the pricey consulting for SESP and SharePoint, all should be able to be installed and configured in a few hours. I would recommend checking out other VARs. Also be aware that TC has a server cost AND web client cost AND CAD client cost. The Insight and SESP product only have a client cost, and depending on your SE license type you may already have the license for Insight.

Also, there are folks at the Solid Edge Community site who have experience with both. Address is in my sig.

Ken G.

http://grundey.blogspot.com

Have you checked out the Solid Edge Community site?

http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge/ct-p/solid-edge

 

[Aces24]

Thank you! That is very helpful.

 

[KENAT]

"We were hoping, however, to add data project by project as we clean it up. Not sure how feasible that is though. "

That's everyone's hope - until you discover you share a bunch of files between different projects and how do you handle haveing a copy in the data base and one outside etc. I've never had a really good solution proposed by any Siemens employee or VAR.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[Kenny_G]

I agree with KENAT, you pretty much have to clean up everything first. There are some Data Migration tools that help with this, but it can be a big job.

Ken G.

http://grundey.blogspot.com

Have you checked out the Solid Edge Community site?

http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge/ct-p/solid-edge