Successful PDM Works proposals to Management?

[SolidsMaster]

Looking for some creative ways to stress the usage of a PDM system (PDM Work in particular) to management and cost associated with not having it. Please let me know, every day is another crisis of copied, deleted, renamed, or moved file nightmare! I've been pushing it for several months now. I'm a highend user and know the software, but don't know the management....Help!

J

 

[ctopher]

The big one for is the history. PDMWorks will keep the rev history without making full copies of each part/assy/dwg. Without it, most companies will make copies of each with the rev in the file names. The folders wil get very big very fast. Also, in PDMWorks it is a quick way to do searches for P/N's, you can rename a P/N and PDMW will update all related assys/dwgs, and PDMW will control who has access to released models and who doesn't. There is much more. There are videos you can download and watch that show much of this.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[Standing]

J,
Management likes to see numbers. Keep track of the hours spent coping, deleting, renaming, or moving files. Put a dollar figure to the hours, we use $100 per hour. Show this to management and I bet they would pay the little extra for PDM Works.

Before we had PDM we had SmarTeam, the company would not pay for a seat for all. Management said the drafters with seats of SmarTeam could and will get you any file you desire. An engineer could not always find a drafter when needed. The drafter would not get the engineer all the files the first time. Then putting them back into the vault the drafter would mess with the assembly, saying the engineer did it wrong.
The bottom line the engineers would copy full assemblies and put them on the network for easy access. When we got PDM we started putting files into the vault. We found we had as many as 32 files of the same model on the net work. It was a mess finding the right file to put into PDM.
I would suggest doing a search of your net work for a few files. Do you have duplicates? We lost more money rebuilding the drawings to look like our paper copy then PDM Works would have cost.


Bradley

 

[engAlright]

History, rev tracking, searchability are all great reasons to have PDMWorks. For the price, you can't beat it for this functionality. Bradley is definetely correct - managers always want to know the cost vs. benefits. Most effective argument is to figure out time lost in:

-recreating lost documents
-retracing your steps in the design process
-real cost of incorrect drawings being sent to the shop floor
-time lost looking for documents

Estimate how much of this would be gone if you have PDMWorks, apply a conservative hourly rate and compare that to the cost of PDMWorks. Voila, you have your ROI.

Also - if you have multiple engineers working on some common assemblies or parts, it's easy to justify PDMWorks for collaboration. With a network, if you want to make a change to a part you have to open up the entire assembly to save it, making the entire assembly inaccesible to anyone else. PDMWorks let's you truly collaborate on this work.

 

[SolidsMaster]

Thanks guys, let me say I'm well aware of the benefits (I've been using PDMW since it first came out). My problem is with convincing people who don't understand the underlying problems without looking like the people before me didn't have a clue on directory struture and file references. Again, I've done all the here's the time we waste referencing, but was looking for something a little more "manager savy". All points well noted though, and seconded.

J

 

[ctopher]

I can give you a little more "manager savy", but it wouldn't make sense.
Print this thread out and show it to them.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[SolidsMaster]

Actually, I clip a bunch of comments from what others have said about PDM and PDMW...but it's not getting much traction....

 

[rporter]

There is another selling point that has not been talked about yet, and that is SECURITY!!!. You set who can do what to your files, such as read only, make new porojects, modify, and copy. This can be a very big issue, we use this as one selling point when we purchased PDMW.

 

[ctopher]

Good point rporter.
Maybe you can also have your VAR setup a demo to show mngmt?

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[SolidsMaster]

Done. and Done.

Just the management that has the $$ needs to be convinced in a $ and cents method...not an easy task, and telling them they've burned as much $$ talking about as it would to buy is a sure fire way to exit stage right....

J

 

[alexsasdad]

SolidsMaster,

Try adding three or four weeks to big projects for the management of data. This will help put it into perspective. If that doesn't work allocate one of the solidworks users to do file maintenance for twenty hours a week.

Alexsasdad

 

[dogarila]

We have 10+ SW seats in my company and no PDM system. I personally never felt a need for one. At one point management was interested in buying PDMWorks but a guy around here who claimed he was trained as PDMWorks administrator convinced them it's a flawed piece of software and it will create more problems then solve.

 

[SolidsMaster]

Apparently he is a mis-guided individual...go to a confrence and take a show of hands. The Majority I'll bet will say otherwise!

Netshop21, how do you handle working on the same parts? You have no revision control? Ever messed up a part and wish to go back? Ever claim your part was changed by someone else intentionally or accidentally? The list goes on and on...many don't see the benefit until it's too late and the problem is vast. I'd think again!

John