How to manage revisions?

Hi,
At the moment i'm working at a company with solidworks without pdm sofware.
Can anybody tell me what's the best way to manage revisions?

My thougts:
1.
On partlevel i could use configurations and name the configuration by
example A or B (the revision)
On assemblylevel i would need to use a Save-as to maintain the original
assambly.

2.
Use Save-as operation on both parts and assemblies. I would have to begin
with a Save-as operation in the assambly. Then i can use save-as operations
in the revised assemly.

Can anybody tell wich way is preferred?
Or tell me a better way to manage revisions?

Thanks,

Bas

 

In leiu of us getting a PDM system we have created E-Drawings of all
drawings and related assemblies at time of issuance.
This works great so far as once a drawing is issued it should not be subject
to editing anyway.

 

Comments between Markus' paragraphs

PDM is basically the same as software configuration managment, which is
what you're talking about with Subversion and CVS, I think. I didn't
read a whole lot on Subversion, but it appears to be freeware, which of
course is a great BIG advantage over most PDM software, but the sorts of
PDM discussed in this newsgroup is specifically tailored to CAD, and
most of it to SolidWorks in specific. As such it's going to have quite
a few operational advantages over Subversion I strongly suspect.

I don't know beans about XML, but this portion of your message is
defintely interesting. I'd like to know why you think you could open
XML files in SW98+ with no feature loss. It would be nice to think that
you're correct, but I'm skeptical. If that were the case, and if XML
files are fairly compact, it seems like someone would have already done
this. Perhaps another reasonable way to do such is to convert to IGES,
STEP, ACIS or Parasolid and then ZIP the archives with a rev letter
attached.

Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton

 

The configurations route is not viable at all, in my opinion. If you
either have to or accidentally delete something, it is lost to all
revisions. Also, what do you do if you want to use a configuration for
another reason?

I personally also think that the "save as" method is too cumbersome to
seriously implement. There are too many cases where you will run into
trouble, including incontext and other external references, parts used
in multiple assemblies, and other situations.

If you are doing revisioning manually with SolidWorks files, you should
look at a PDM system. It automates all of the cumbersome things.

PDM systems can be cheap, like DBWorks, PDMWorks or Activault. This bit
of money up front will pay for itself with the first major rework that
you avoid.

If you absolutely have to do this without a PDM system, I would just
archive old part and assembly files by changing their names (adding the
rev to the file name) and moving them to another folder. The current
rev would not have a rev in the filename. This is still unreliable for
parts and assemblies.

The reason I say this is that we went through the same decision process
at my company and after reworking a couple prototypes built from
wrong-rev prints, we put a mid-level PDM in place and haven't seen rev
level problems since.

-g-

 

We went with SofTech's ProductCenter. Got a good price on it before the
company was bought. It's a good product with workflow. Easy enough to
use. http://www.workgroup.com/

We have another division that uses PDMWorks, and from what I've seen of
that, it's pretty easy for bare-bones revision management.

-g-

 

I have seen some PDM-less companies use search directories to archive
revisions. Each revision is placed in a subfolder with the revision
level. Search directories are set up to look in folders for newest
revs first.

For instance, your project is in a folder "c:\project". Parts are
stored in subfolders "c:\project\revA", "c:\project\revB", etc.
Search folders are set up to begin searching from highest revision
first. Part file names stay the same, so rolling back revisions is as
simple as removing the newer revisions from their subfolders OR
preloading the older revisions.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION FOLLOWS:
I am about to release an addin that takes someof the pain out of this
operation. The addin stores search folder schemes, and generates
search folder lists including subfolders. It even lets you choose
between forward and reverse alphabetical sorting of search folders.
But wait, there's more! There's also a function that monitors your
folders and updates search paths if subfolders are changed.
Project-specific schemes can be saved for later use, so switching
between search folder schemes is easier than making julienne fries.

Interested?
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com
For the toothiest API in pike country!

regards,
Roland Schwarz

 

TheTick wrote:
....

Well, if that works for you then I can't argue with you, but I wouldn't
trust the bunch of clumsy users that I work with to that system. The
problem is that you have multiple copies of the same filename, and
SolidWorks is as likely to find one as another. If you look in Help
Index, and type in "Search", and pick the "file locations for external
references", there are probably 10 places SW looks before it looks in
the last place the file was saved.

You'd have to set up the work directory in Tools, Options, File
Locations, Referenced Files, which is simple for only one folder, but
you might have several folders.

Anyway, sounds scary to me, but more power to you if you can get it to work.

-g-

 

One of your pikes is upside-down on your freeware page.

 

Speaking of pikes, did anyone catch this around new years?

http://users.adelphia.net/~mjlombard/partypike.jpg

 

That's my "technical difficulties" bullet. A little fish humor, "belly up".

 

Actually, we have PDM where I work. I am trying to design products to
ease the pain of those who are PDM-less, all priced for less than a
good lunch (with mid-day martinis).

I have seen the folder scheme utilized in a couple places, and not
just on SW, but with Pro/E and UG as well. Some places don't have a
PDM, and that's a fact. Anything that makes it easier for users to
follow "manual" archiving protocols should help.

As far as where SW looks for external references, this is an good
scheme, since the first place SW looks is in the search folders in the
order they are listed. Even with some PDM systems (Meridian in
particular), having search folders can reduce load times.

 

Forget about any other method of file management, get pdmworks or similar.
I am quite new to solidworks(about a year), and tried various methods, but
pdmworks saved a big project from going tits up when the server hard disk
found it was fed up with life!

We now have a new server with raid and use pdmworks, but be warned though,
it is quite hard to learn, but once you get to know the program, it really
is quite good.

I have really rubbished it before, but that is because you are very
constrained in it's operation.
There are some things that I would like to be added to the program,
including a little flexibility!
Also a better help program with examples would help.

To know is happiness, not to know is frustration!