Total Quantity 1

[JaconHarbour]

Here is the deal.

The company I work for demands that each assembly drawing shows the TOTAL QTY for the BOM.

For example: Bolt 501 is used 100 times in each assembly. However the blueprint calls for 7 of these to be built.

So therefore, the BOM must show a line that reads

501 700QTY Bolt

I have added a custom property to the assembly that reads TotalQTY = 7

I have tried adding a column to the BOM such as

`QTY` * $PRPMODEL:"TotalQTY"

But that doesn't seem to work.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The company you work for is stupid! They are begging for trouble.

That is as bad, or even worse, than (permanently) placing the qty of a part on its detail drawing.

What happens if the next order is for only 5 assys?

 

[JaconHarbour]

I should have clarified that bit.

We almost never build the same components twice.

All components of each order have a unique ID for every part.

Such as. If Order XY123 comes in

then each part and assembly and drawing have the prefix XY123_(file_name)

The only thing I need to focus on is that a part may be used in numerous assemblies, for each project. If that was not the case, I know that I could just add the TOTAL# to each part and then multiply the part qty with that custom field


What I need to figure out.

is there a way to multiply the QTY column in a Solidworks BOm with a custom property in an assembly shown in the drawing.

 

[EEnd]

So if you have a project that has 4 assembly A’s and 3 assembly B’s and each assembly A requires 3 item X’s while assembly B requires 2 item X’s, then should the drawing / BOM for assembly A show 12 Xs required and the drawing / BOM for assembly B show 6 Xs required or should both drawings / BOMs show 18Xs required or are there no drawings / BOMs for assemblys A or B, just some upper level drawing / BOM that shows 18Xs required?

If it is the last case then you could create an assembly with 4 A’s and 3 B’s and use the BOM for that.

See thread559-249854 for a good discussion about why a practice similar to this is not recommended.

Eric

 

[JaconHarbour]

I have read that thread, and it is not what we are trying to do.

In answering your question. Our drawing/bom for assembly A would show that we would need 12 X's for that sheet.

These are sheet metal components. They are never the same. each part is different from job to job. So I do not have to worry about having the QTY issue come up later.

I have tried to get the process to show a BOM for the Qty's of one assembly, and just have a note stating that we need X amount of them made. That was not accepted.

The BOM MUST show the QTY's for all needed.

I have tried to make an equation showing the QTY * (custom property of the assembly) but I cannot get it to work.

BTW, I am using SW 2009.

 

[JMarv]

Can you pattern your final assembly so there are seven instances, but hide (not suppress) the pattern so they are not displayed in the drawing?

Joe
SW Office 2008 SP5.0
P4 3.0Ghz 3GB
ATI FireGL X1

 

[JaconHarbour]

No, these assemblies can tax our systems as they are. If I was to pattern them as many times as needed (sometimes up into the hundreds) it would eat us alive.

 

[MDGroup]

Jacon,
There is a very crude work around for this. NOTE: It creates a lot of other issues, but if you are only using a drawing once, it could work for you.

Create you drawing.
Create a BOM for that drawing.
Export the BOM into Excel.
Add a new collumn in the excel spreadsheet for Total Qty and set up an equation for Qty * #ofAssys. (Or add any other fields that you want)
Now, Copy and paste the excel BOM back into your drawing.

You now have a BOM on your solidworks drawing that lists the total quantity of parts needed.

HOWEVER, this BOM is no longer linked to any SW properties. Any changes you make to the assy will not be reflected in this hacked-Excel BOM.
If you make changes to the assy or parts, you will need to repeat all of the above steps to get a current updated BOM.

 

[JaconHarbour]

Well, so far I may have to go with the way I have figured.

If I created a new Column "Qty." and add an equation for this column. 'QTY' * # (# being the amount of assemblies to be made). And then hide the original QTY column. I end up with a BOM that shows me the total needed.

However, that require the end user to input the # needed into the BOM equation. I was wanting it to read it from a custom property field in the assembly itself

In the assembly. there exist a custom property field

"NumberOfTrays"
which contains the number of trays of this type needed for this job. For example "7"

I figured the equation would be as simple as

$PRPSHEET:"NumberOfTrays" * 'QTY'

But all that produces is

=7*'QTY'

If I only put $PRPSHEET:"NumberOfTrays" into the equation
I get

=7

 

[handleman]

What version of SW are you using?

In 2009 you can make a column be an equation. Add a column with an equation. This column will be an equation for your number of assemblies. The equation is:

=7

Now, add your total quantity column. The equation for this column will be the actual qty column * the "7" column.

You can hide the "7" column if you so desire.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[JaconHarbour]

I have tried that. I created a column with the title "num"

Then created a new column. and set it's equation to 'qty' * 'num'

and it produces a column full of zeros

 

[handleman]

What did you put in the 'num' column? Did you try to link it to the $prpsheet thing again? It has to be an actual number.

You can either enter "7" into every cell, or you can make that column an equation that is "=7". That way you only enter the value once. You can't link that value to a custom property. It has to be manually entered.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[jefrado]

Actually this is an issue even with normal companies. It has been a requirement in most places I am familiar with that the drawing show the number of parts required for that job. This number has to come from somewhere.

I have a QTY in the custom properties along with a macro that reads the QTY of the main assy and counts the parts and multiplies it times the assy quantity. The qty properties contains the total number of parts/assy in the main assy. This number appears on the drawings.

We have another macro that assembles all this stuff and loads an excell sheet with the information so it can be printed out separately. Another feature we found was required was to sort the parts and assys so they printed out in the same order every time the macro was run. Previously, it drove everyone nuts trying to keep track of stuff when changes were made.

I have never tried to incorporate this into an imbedded bill.

John