PDM, WHAT TO DO?

[ogray]

Hello,
I've got somewhat of a dilema and I'm looking for some insight from someone who has gone through this before. Our company has been working for some time with no PDM solution. We started with 2 Solidworks usuers and now we have 12 dedicated SW usuers and several Autocad usuers. We have made a company decision to use SmartTeam as our PLM company wide solution to incorporate workflow,routing, etc.

We have also considered using PDMworks as the PDM solution for Engineering.

What I am trying to determine is what makes more sense..

1. Organize TONS of legacy data and incorporate into PDMworks and let SmartTeam run 'over' PDMworks or

2. Organize all data and rely strictly on SmartTeam for everything?

Keep in mind, we have been running for 5-6 years with nothing so I relaize it is going to be a major task either way. I'm not sure that I want to go through 2 learning processes, Using PDMworks, then Using SmartTeam.

Does PDMworks offer me anything that SmartTeam doesn't or vise versa?

Not suprisingly, I'm getting conflicting info from the sales guys. SW sales guys "yes, you need to run PDMworks and let SmartTeam pull from that vault" SmartTeam Sales guys "no need to put another layer in there, SmartTeam can do it all". What do you users have to say?

Thanks for any input.

 

[ctopher]

I don't know much about SmartTeam. We use PDMW and we have no troubles at all. It takes time to organize all of the existing file into PDMW, but is worth it. We have not a need for ST.

 

[Standing]

We started with SmarTeam and yes it will do everything. The problem we had was no time or money to hire someone who knew SmarTeam. One of our smartest learned from the SmarTeam manual after our 3-day training from our VAR. The administrators I believe got an extra 2 days of training. We messed it up so bad that the quote to fix it was $27,000.
My suggestion if you are going to use SmarTeam is to have a trained SmarTeam professional who knows engineering come in and setup a turnkey system for you. After all that is done, make sure that everyone who needs SmarTeam gets a seat. The cost of SmarTeam is not the same as PDM Works. If you are required to have everything that SmarTeam does, then I see that there is no question. We only needed to control our SolidWorks models, AutoCAD, MSWord and the like.


Bradley

 

[SBaugh]

The thing I have seen about Smarteam is it doesn't keep up with the latest version of SW and you have to wait for Smarteam to catch up before you can upgrade.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[alexsasdad]

You would be doing yourself a favor if you check out the ADEPT software by Synergis. They are a gold partner and we are currently looking at their product. They have been very responsive to all of our questions and they have recorded web demos that are available for downloading. This will let you carefully review their software at your own convience.

Good luck in your search for a pdm system.

 

[ogray]

Thanks to all for the input.

 

[tluxon]

alexsasdad,

I looked at Synergis' website and could find no mention of SolidWorks, let alone anything about them being a gold partner with SolidWorks. They sure seem to have AutoCAD/Inventor covered, however.

Does anybody just do PDM manually with good success?

Tim

 

[MElam]

We have over 40 users and have been on SWx since 97 using a "manual" PDM process, but I would not say with good success. We have had problems with files being overwritten, keeping the references straight during the archiving process, and are now fighting with a concurrent engineering project.

We are in the middle of purchasing DBWorks (

http://62.101.95.130/mechworks/index.asp).

It does everything we needed, including workflow/routing and the quote was half of the one for SmartTeam.

 

[J-C]

MElam, are you using the replication abilities of DBWorks?

We are in the same boat, been using SolidWorks since 98plus and all PDM has been manual. Also our company relocated everyone from one central location to 3 locations all within a 60 mile radius. We've implemented a replication software package called Availl and purchased 3 servers. We now replicate our Solidworks files real-time. However we haven't had much luck with the replication.

Something like DBWorks may be our only option at the low end if it works well.

Jason Capriotti
ThyssenKrupp Elevator

 

[ogray]

Does DBworks offer you the same features as Smarteam? Will it manage "other" documents, MS office, E-CAD docs, etc?

 

[RawheadRex]

Hi,

I have extensive experience with both PDMWorks and SmarTeam. As a general statement I think that where you you're going with SmarTeam on an enterprise wide basis you don't need the additional burden of dealing with PDMWorks at the engineering level. You're best off to just stick with the SmarTeam product for your engineering PDM solution in my opinion.

I'm honestly kind of blown away that someone would be trying to sell you on trying to integrate PDMWorks with SmarTeam. The underlying principles of how these guys accomplish their similar tasks are quite different from one another. Really it would take a significant amount of time, energy, and effort (not to mention headache) to make these guys "play" well with one another.

Don't get me wrong I think that PDMWorks is a good tool as far it goes for it's intended purpose (I use it in my current job) but it is not conducive to a PLM Software solution in my opinion. SmarTeam as a PDM package is superior to PDMWorks insofar that it is more extensive in terms of functionality. But beware that the rub is that this comes with the price of being more complex and difficult to understand and put into practice.

Another advantage of SmarTeam based on what I've read in your post is that you might be able to script the organization of legacy data more easily than with PDMWorks due to the fact that the SmarTeam API is more mature. This would have the effect of saving you time. PDMWorks doesn't really offer too much in API functionality and you have to pay a steep price to even access it given that one needs to purchase the Advanced Server module. That's a pet peeve of mine but really where you're concerned I don't see much advantage using PDMWorks in that regard either.

I would also like to echo the sentiment of one of the previous posts, get a SmarTeam black belt/guru/whatchamacallit person onboard for your implementation. I would say for certain you're in for a long and interesting journey. Good luck!



Chris Gervais
Sr. Mechanical Designer
Lytron Corp.

 

[EdDanzer]

We have used Excel for PDM, and part number tracking. It works ok for a few people, if you are reasonably diligent. If a file is important, just make it read only. We do some larger assemblies, more than 1000 parts. With only 1 or 2 people the check in and out time of PDM will reduce productivity. Having never worked in a large group environment I cannot say what would happen with our methods.

 

[Glonoin]

Re: tluxon -

http://www.synergis-adept.com/

The bottom link on that page is to a page describing their Adept-SolidWorks Integration and to their Gold Certification logo.

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/partners/PartnerDetails.html?ID=1210

SolidWorks also lists them here as a Gold Partner.

 

[MElam]

Jason and ogray,
Sorry for the late response, I had a little time off.

Jason, we will be doing replication and have done a small test in the pilot stage. It only replicates changes, not the entire database. For the initial setup we are going to bring the servers from the branch locations (AR & VA)here to the TN corporate office instead of dumping the vault over the WAN. After that, the replication will be done during low-peak times but can be done real-time if needed. We are still at the purchase stage, so full production testing has not been done.

ogray, DBWorks can manage "other" documents, MS office, AutoCAD, etc. but can not handle all of the CAD systems SmartTeam can. We only need to manage SolidWorks, AutoCAD and Office docs. They do have a seperate app for Inventor.

 

[J-C]

Melam, where are you guys located adn what company are you? We are in Memphis.

Jason Capriotti
ThyssenKrupp Elevator

 

[MElam]

McKee Foods Corp. in Collegedale (just outside of Chattanooga)

 

[ogray]

RRex
That is the kind of insight I was looking for. I tend to agree with you in that I don't want for us to go through "2" learning curves.

Thanks very much to all for the input.

Chris O.

 

[potter87]

Take a look at Conisio. We compared it to Adept a while back and found out that Conisio was with SolidWorks much longer and worked inside of Windows Explorer. After comparing the two we chose Conisio.

http://www.conisio.com

Jim

 

[Glonoin]

I tried to look up Conisio, couldn't find them listed under the SolidWorks Gold Partners - are they not a Gold Partner?

I also searched the online sites for MCADCafe, CAD Digest, and Cadalyst magazines for Conisio, came up completely dry.

Were they at SolidWorks World in Boston this year?

I did go to their web site and it doesn't look like they have a corporate presence here in the United States.
They have a few resellers here but what about corporate involvement, tech support, SPR's and that sort of thing?
The web site did have a contact email from someone in Sweden but I didn't see a phone number in the event I wanted to call, do some sort of reality check. Couldn't find a list of reference accounts here in the States either, but I didn't spend too long searching their site so I may have missed that page.

http://www.mcadcafe.com

http://www.caddigest.com

http://www.cadalyst.com

 

[Glonoin]

Naturally I would hold any package to that gold standard and do all of the things I listed as due diligence - I didn't mean to single any package out for scrutiny. It's not like lives are at stake here - my data is much more important than that