To Break or Not to Break External Ref

I'm in favor of external references, but only to standard parts, like hardware and vendor items. I strongly feel that all incontext features should be broken. "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

Could you please elaborate on your strong feeling of breaking all external references? I had that same strong feeling when we first started issueing SolidWorks files. The fear was that it would turn into a big rats nest with things changing by accident. Now thinking about it again if I check out a part and recheck it in it will be a new rev. BBJT CSWP

My situation might be a bit different than yours. I work in R&D where external and incontext are my best friends. After we have something more than "conceptual" we remodel all parts to eliminate these external and incontexted parts. The fear stems from less capable users of SWX at my company that may not recognize a part or feature that has an external reference, the same fears that you had/have... probably unfounded to say the least. =)

We have ProductCenter PDM software, but have yet to start using it. When we "open" parts, they will keep their REV but the Version of the parts will step-up. Parts could be "opened" numerous times, but the REV will stay (Rev A, Ver 1... Rev A, Ver 34) the same.

Only after we actually "check-out" and "check-in" parts will the Rev change. "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

Good point on less capable users of SWX. We will have over a hundred users by the year end with different degrees of knowledge when it comes to SolidWorks. For novice users external references could be very confusing.
Thanks for you feed back.

I welcome any other opinions.s-) BBJT CSWP

We have been struggling here a lot with versioning and revisioning. The main idea at our company is to maximise the use of parts and assys over and over again. You might say that we are aiming at unified solutions that make the designs in the end like "assembling a Lego". This aim is probably as far as building a genuine communism but still...
When a change is made to part/assy then the designer will decide whether to change a revision
(minor change which will not have affect on other main assys it is used in)
or new version (part/assy is changed in the way it cannot be used in "old" places, but it will be a derivation of its design intent). When something new is designed then just a new number is issued. New number is also the safest way for designer when deciding whether revision or version should be changed.
As you see it is upside down compared to MadMango. And we use homemade "PDM" at the present. :
BR,
Linqur