Legacy Drawings in PDM/Works

[pdybeck]

We have PDM/Works here and I am beginning to get to the point where we are creating SolidWorks files of a part already in production here that is defined by an AutoCAD drawing. Once the part is created in SolidWorks, a drawing is created in SolidWorks and the rev number is one up from the AutoCAD drawing. I plan to check in the AutoCAD drawing into the vault along with the SolidWorks part and drawing - we don't just want ot trash the ACAD drawing as it is par tof the rev history. I plan to make add a reference between the SolidWorks drawing and ACAD drawing. Then I plan to put the SWX drawing in a released lifecycle and the ACAD drawing in a legacy life cylce with permissions set so that those outside of engineering don't see two drawings for the same part number. Only users in engineering would see the ACAD - or maybe just vault admin would see the ACAD file. But at the least, we would still preserve the history of the drawing and prevent others from viewing/printing the ACAD by mistake. How does everyone handle this. Is there a better solution for this that I am not aware of. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Pete Yodis

 

[pdybeck]

c'mon, there's got to be somebody out there ....

 

[RawheadRex]

I would say that what you propose seems reasonable. Personally though I would take the ACAD data and place it under its own project(s) as appropriate in PDMWorks. To me the linking of SW and ACAD files is overkill and doesn't appear offer a great deal of benefit for the effort expended. It seems to me that you're best off just archiving the ACAD data in a protected location as appropriate when you check in the newly created SW file(s). That way your history is available if needed.

For the record, our policy is anything that we work on which exists in another format other than SW gets redrawn in SW. Our revision history is maintained in PDF format. Document control handles distribution of proper documentation revisions.



Chris Gervais
Sr. Mechanical Designer
Lytron Corp.