revision tracking with model based definition FTA

[steelheadcity]

one of our companies aerospace customers is going to all model based definition and is pushing the requirement to us. we do not have experience with it. i am currently the only catia user and will be the one interacting with our customer on this subject. how does anyone handle revision documentation? we have a very strict quality control and i know the issue will come up. i have already been asked about being able to do a report of the dimensions from a model and havent found a way. i would like to have some ideas in my pocket. any advice is appreciated. also any lessons learned in this area would be very helpful. thank you!

 

[ferdo]

Hi,

Do you use a PLM/PDM system? If not, its time... or with some programming skills you can handle but it will be, let's say, not so easy and comfortable...

FTA can be exported in Excel with a macro (just an idea...), along with other (meta)data.

Regards
Fernando

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[JeniaL]

For your company internal purposes you can export all annotations to a drawing or PPT export. What is the difference between controlling revisions of files that have annotations and files without annotations? For me it's the same.

 

[steelheadcity]

i can track a revision, my concern was tracking what has changed. its not like on a 2d drawing where you show what has changed with revision information. so if i pass my 3d model on to either my customer, my supplier or even someone 5 years down the road that views the history of the part, how do i convey the changes in the part easily. if its a very complex part and maybe the only change is a dimension that i am adjust by .002", it may not be obvious.

 

[itsmyjob]

Can you just, like in a drawing have a note about the history?

Eric N.
indocti discant et ament meminisse periti ​

 

[jackk]

I agree with Ferdo about using a PDM or PLM system to control and manage revisions of the CAD data.

As far as documenting the changes; here are a couple thoughts:

1. Ask your customer what they do to document the revisions, and do the same thing

2. At my last job at a defense contractor (Boeing and Airbus were customers), we used paper EC forms (printed Excel docs) to document and sign-off on the revisions and scanned PDFs were sent to the customer. These contained lots of IS/WAS pictures with ADD/REMOVE/CHANGE balloons highlighting the changes.

3. You could add FTA Annotations to the 3D model with 3D Text to highlight the change. Each revision could have it's own View or Layer to group the annotations.

 

[steelheadcity]

Im thinking i will have to creat 2d on our side. we have the PDM systems. currently we run smarteam but will be migrating to Aras and currently also use vault. vault being our main for cad since we solely use inventor . im the only catia user out of the hundereds of invetnor users. our customer is gulfstream, they are to be in to do an audit of types. i am trying to get a head start. i just found how to create the 2d views straight from the 3d views. lol im usually just thrown into the fire here and i have to figure out to put them out.

 

[JeniaL]

Revised part can come with new part number (depends on a company). In annotations I can see what changed (new capture).
Boeing, IAI do that a lot. Just createnew capture, add flag note and you are done.

 

[harlowmatt]

I have been using a parameter in the tree of the part for each revision. The parameter shows revision, revision release date, and description of change. You could also go a step further and put an annotation pointing to the change on the part.