Anyone here manually manage their SW files successfully?

Anyone here manually manage their SW files successfully?

If so:
How many heavy SW users do you have?
Are they in 1 dept, or multiple depts?
How many files do you have roughly?

 

I did it manually for 5 years before I left the company, mostly because
management would not approve the $$$ for a PDM system.

It was primarily one department that represented the parts for the
whole company. Other departments were custom contract based engineering
and did their own thing, though they did access the "main" files for
their needs.

Our "Released" folders contained around 15,000 or so files. All stored
in 9 folders that was named by the first number in the part number
(Release 1, Release 2, etc.) That was so there wouldn't be so many
files in one folder.

 

I do it successfully, but then again, I am the CAD monkey.

 

I know you didn't ask for this, but I'm going to lay it on you anyway. We
had enough trouble trying to work without PDM when there were just two of
us, in one department, with only a few dozen files. The problem was that we
were working together on a new design with a lot of interaction required.
Swapping files back and forth became such a pain that we were happy to go to
a simple PDM system. It didn't cost us much and saved us an incredible
amount of headaches.

Your case is probably completely different, but being unhappy with your
present PDM system doesn't mean you will be happy without it, nor that you
couldn't be much happier with another PDM system that is a better match to
your needs.

This advice is, of course, worth every penny you paid for it.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"