My name is Steve Ammann and I recently joined the team here at Zero Wait-State. One of my charters is to build a best in class, data management services practice for clients that have a strong footprint in SolidWorks (SW) MCAD technology. We work with the SW Corporation and the SW resellers in a collaborative way, as we don't sell CAD or troubleshoot your CAD model when you can't make a feature. Before I get into my topic today, here is a little background. I started my career in MCAD Software in 1989 with Parametric Technology Corporation, when 3D feature based modeling was new to the world. Obviously a lot has changed since then, PTC went from 10 million in sales when I joined, to over a billion in sales and the 3D MCAD technology PTC pioneered has become a standard design methodology for millions of mechanical engineers. Most recently, I spent 3 years at a large west coast SW Value Added Reseller (VAR), learning about the SolidWorks environment and more importantly about the challenges faced and opportunities available for the companies that have embraced the SolidWorks technology product line. This first article will run through some of the fundamentals surrounding leveraging CAD data for enterprise utilization. I will be using the wisdom of John Wooden to illustrate the fundamentals of PDM and PLM.
This series of articles has nothing to do with any kind of CAD debate on who's MCAD technology is better, it has to do with how the product definition in the 3D models or digital engineering assets, can be controlled and thus leveraged by the right data management system, helping enable companies to achieve their corporate objectives. At a high level, I mean 2 things –
- Lowering the cost of product development - which makes the Engineering VP/Director/Manager/and Engineering team look good.
- Increasing revenue by introducing products to market earlier to capture all the revenue available prior to that products end of life- something that is usually fixed in time. More revenue per product makes the management and sales team look good, and the competition look bad.
What I found at my last job was that many SW clients need some basic fundamentals clarified before even engaging in a data management initiative. Caveat - There are also many SW clients sophisticated enough in their deployment of Product Development System technology to not need this refresher, if you are not one of these read on if you are one of these keep reading to see if I got it right and feel free to add your own perspective in the comments area.
Since it is quite difficult to cover everything in one article, I will be providing a series of articles to the SW community so that readers can engage in a digestible educational process. Here are the first three titles of the series:
PDM 101 - 2 Real basics - The one you are reading now - please don't hold me to only PDM, I am quite familiar with PLM technology. If we are discussing PLM managing MCAD - we are discussing PDM, also called Engineering Collaboration or from a tool side, a workgroup manager for CAD in the PLM tool.
Help! How do I make sense of all the technology options available for data management in the SW community? - This article will focus on the top 3 Product Development System infrastructures that are best in class, actually work (this is from field experience, I was leading a team that successfully deployed them), and can scale with your business.
The Top 5 things to look for in a competent services provider - This article will focus on - well I think the title says it all.
I may extend this series based on feedback from the community- I have some other topic ideas but let's see how these first three go over. The great thing about blogging is that you can get real feedback and then you can adjust your content to satisfy your readers so let me know what topics would help!
PDM 101 - 2 real basics- John Wooden, the great former coach of UCLA, first taught all his new players - how to tie their shoes.
- 1st basic - Get your 3d Models - The Digital Corporate assets - in good shape - Tie your shoes right!
If you are unsure of the skill level of your corporate asset creators ( typically the mechanical engineers using SolidWorks), you should engage with your SW reseller in a skills assessment and training program to ensure they are really good at using the CAD tool versus just thinking they are. Bad modeling practices are typically caused by a lack of training so be careful. Many SW users come from a 2D CAD background and they produce drawings from 3D models, with all kinds of short cuts and bad modeling practices just to get the "drawing" out. SolidWorks has an excellent training curriculum they provide to their resellers and skills assessment testing for certifications. Engage with your reseller to execute a training program- it will pay off.
- 2nd basic-What is Associativity and why should I care? - Perhaps coach Wooden would say- Let’s understand the game of basketball, how it’s played, so we can execute at a high level because of fundamental knowledge.
A fundamental concept that management and engineering needs to understand before we can talk about leveraging those Digital Assets is that SolidWorks files share a feature that PTC pioneered ( not a CAD debate here but let's give credit to Mr. Geisberg for his work) called associativity.
The product structure of SW files - parts, sub-assemblies, top level assemblies are LINKED through file names to each other. If you were to change a part name (file name) without a data management system or having ALL the linked files in memory, the next time you opened an assembly that contained that part- SolidWorks can't find it. Without going into the weeds here, I am just pointing out a fundamental reason why SW clients should have a data management system that understands ALL SolidWorks linking (associativity) intimately and not something that is a flat file based system. I call understanding associativity the “brain” of the CAD data management system. Keep in mind that those links can change with new revisions of the CAD tool, new features are added that provide deeper references - as in cabling and piping components- and the data management system must keep up otherwise you are sub-optimizing the CAD tool functionality.
Engineering Management: “Why aren’t we using SW to design our cables?
Engineer: Oh, our data management tool can’t understand the references yet.
Not the answer management wants to hear.
If you have ever wondered why it takes the engineering team too much time to simply change a SW part name at the end of a product development cycle, it's because without a proper data management system, they have to find and bring up in memory, all the associated assemblies, subs, drawings etc. to make sure everything gets re-linked upon saving. It gets even worse when you throw in revisions of files where engineers have named the files with a rev A or Rev B- don't laugh - I found this in way too many companies for the year 2011. I call that human data management (HDM) and when you are having highly skilled and paid engineers doing this type of work, they are:
A- Bored
B- Not designing- which is what they love and get paid to do
C- Costing you money doing activities that can be done simply with a data management system
Bottom line- Associativity understanding is critical to leveraging your SW digital assets. Here is a slide I titled, “If I only had a Brain”, I used to show folks when some ERP vendors were touting they could do everything, including Product Development management at the engineering level.
I am sure there are some other fundamentals to cover but it’s a blog and too long means no one will read it, so what’s the point. Look for my next in series article, Help! How do I make sense out of all the technology options for data management in the SolidWorks community?
In the mean time - assess your SW digital asset creators skill level- get them certified- fix the bad models and if you don't have a data management system in place, go ask an engineer to take a SW part file from a decent sized assembly and change the name with a windows rename command without having all the linked files in memory.
If you don't like what you see, call or email Zero Wait-State and we will work with you and your VAR to help you.