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.

 

[JNR]

OK. Hands up those of you who actually read what ogray said? It is not much help to him if you ignore that and just give other information I am guilty of doing this also sometimes. Maybe we should preface alternative info or opinions which do not really answer the question presented with a comment to that effect?

Back to business..... ogray states:

"We have made a company decision to use SmartTeam as our PLM company wide solution to incorporate workflow,routing, etc."

OK, so that is a DONE DEAL. He is not asking for alternative suggestions on that subject.

Now he wants to know if it is a good idea to use PDMWorks IN ADDITION. That's pretty simple.

RawHeadRex actually answered his question and responded with alomst exactly what I was going to say. So I will is not bore you by repeating it.

I agree 100% with RawHeadRex. In addition I would note that SmarTeam is set up to handle AutoCAD and several other CAD systems. Plus you can manage any Window application files and any other miscellaneous files with some configuration. It also will handle inter- relationships between them. It will use various viewers including eDrawings and SW Viewer.

OK - one little repetition - do not complicate the issue by using PDMWorks or any other such package to duplicate what SmartTeam can already do for you in much more sophisticated manner. Since you are already going to learn SmarTeam the issue of its complexity is irrelevant.
Yes, start off with rent-an-expert - but make sure they really are the right expert. Make sure you do a dummy "project" run first to iron out the little foibles.

Scott's comment on the lag in SmarTeam updates behind SW releases is to some extent true. However this is continually improving, particularly now SW has some control over SmarTeam. And the new regional VAR only arrangement for SmartTeam is more appropriate to the level of support expertise it requires. It was tough for the smaller/local VAR to provide effectively for ecconomic reasons.

Also note that with the size and type of operation you are running you will not be wanting to load any new SW releases in combat mode until at least an SP or two has fixed all the major goofs found by the more adventurous among us. And you will be wanting to schedule your update process to fit with your work priorities and so on - it is going to be a planned and pre-tested event. (You will have set up and proven a test server configuration.) So the lag is not really much of an issue these days.

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

 

[Glonoin]

To expound a little bit on what JNR said, and without completely disagreeing with RawHeadRex I wish to add that I have seen several other implementations using other PDM packages in sort of how I envision you will be using PDM/Works and SmarTeam - the larger package (SmarTeam in this case) as the corporate solution that handles working as the large 'overlord' coordinating accounting, purchasing, MRP, etc, and the smaller more nimble package (PDM/Works in this case) handling the day to day to workings of the development team. As machines / entire assemblies are released as a package, approved by the powers that be as a successful build - they are published as a unit from PDM/Works into SmarTeam.

Assuming your dozen engineers will implement your smaller package first or parallel to the uberPackage, the benefits of approaching it in this two tier manner are a) the engineers most needing document management get their documents in order fast - a workgroup level install of any of the smaller packages should be installed, configured and running nicely in two to three weeks at the absolute longest, a full corporate roll out of SmarTeam can take months and months (possibly longer than a year); b) at a cost of well under $30,000 including licenses, implementation / installation, and training, where a full corporate rollout of one of the large company wide uberPackage can easily run a quarter million dollars or more; and c) when it comes time to add the engineering data to the uberPackage, all of the organization that needs to happen for a successful migration into PDM has already been done.

Once the uberPackage is ready, you can either move all of your neatly organized data / files into it from your first smaller package and use the uberPackage for your engineering workgroup, or develop a 'publish' strategy that moves complete, approved, released sets of drawings and BOM's from your workgroup package into your corporate package, allowing your engineers to continue working day to day in the package they are already using (quite successfully, I hope.)

 

[potter87]

SolidWorks Solution Partner

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/partners/PartnerDetails.html?ID=1032

http://www.conisio.com/en/aboutus.html

http://www.conisio.com/en/news.html?lang=en&show=article&id=040107_swworld2004.txt

 

[PLMGuru]

When assessing PDM tools, you have to look at PDM functionality. Just because a particular software "handles" many document types does not mean it meets your PDM needs. That is document management. SmarTeam is tightly integrated with SolidWorks and works very well. That is not to say it does not have issues as with any software. We have over 100 SolidWorks and SmarTeam users. We have defined strict processes and made SmarTeam function to meet those processes. There in lies the key. Define your processes, implement SmarTeam, and let them meet somewhere. Then your PDM drives your process.