Making files read-only

We don't have a PDM system for Solidworks, and file management is a real
pain without it.
I would like to prevent accidental modification to part and assembly files
(I think this is much less likely to happen to the drawings) and wonder if I
can limit the chances of this by changing the file properties to "read
only".
I'm hoping this will force/encourage the user to make a new copy of the file
with the suffix (aka "issue") raised accordingly, if they wish to modify it.

Does this sound practicable?
Are there any traps for the unwary I should know about?

TIA
John Harland

 

We use a "read-only" system, and find it generally satisfactory.

The big trick in getting it set up was to have a good document control
procedure. The released documents are all on the server --only the doc
control guy has write access to the relevant directories. Everybody else
has read-only access

 

....

External / in-context references can get hosed up in a hurry, but in
general, your released data needs to be protected in some way, so you're
doing the right thing.

 

I PDF drawings to a released folder then print from there, when they
get up issued I suffix the part with -B -C etc to keep the history,
this also enables quick batch print. you really need to buy Adobe 7
pro, this makes life much easier

steve

 

Thanks for the replies.
My thoughts:-
1) Changing finished parts/assys to read-only seems to be the consenus thing
to do, if you don't have a PDM system to do it for you. Does anyone know of
or have a system (macro/VB program) to automate this, as finding the right
files manually and changing their properties will be a PITA.

2) Kalle wrote:-
"You have an assembly with some parts created in it with references to other
parts in this assembly. Now all your parts are read only except for the
part that you want to modify. You modify it and some other part (set to
read only) that has references to the part you change gets changed (due to
the read only state only on your harddrive). If you now open the drawing
for that second part it will show the changed state because SolidWorks has
changed the part in memory (even though you won't be able to save the
changes - the part is still read-only). Now you print that drawing and
voila you have a wrong drawing that might get into the workshop."

Is this true? - if so, it's a big weakness of SW, and one that presumably
applies whether or not you have a PDM system i.e. if SW can rebuild a
read-only part in memory because the part driving the in-context relation
has changed, then this will happen woth a PDM system too.

Jerry said that using Activault or PrductCenter that the database would
remain unchanged - I'm sure that is true, but does not mean that what you
see on the screen is valid, if Kalle's sceanrio is correct.

3) Seth wrote:-
"Since none of the PDM systems that I looked at had a foolproof way of
determining the difference between a model that actually changed, or a model
that just got saved more recently, I opted to go the route of making my
files read only when I am done with a project."

I was an I-DEAS user, and it had a "part compare" function that compared the
surfaces and highlighted what had changed. I think you could also do an
"assembly compare" that compared what instances/components it comprised.

4) John Layne wrote:-
"I opted to map the PDM Revision not to the standard "Revision" property in
SolidWorks but to a property called "PDMRevision".
Thus revisions on the drawing are driven from the part files "Revision"
property which is manually controlled. "

This sounds dangerous to me - what happens when you change the drawing but
not the part?
e.g. change the "finish" details, change a dimension tolerance, add a note.
The drawing needs up-issuing even though the part has not changed.

5) TOP wrote about versions and revisions, a distinction that I'm
comfortable with. However, are you saying that PDMWorks makes no
distinction between the two?
If so, is it still not possible to create a custom property called "issue"
that the user manually assigns when checking parts back in, and then your
manufacturing system only looks at the status of this "issue" field?
The I-DEAS pdm system prompted to manually assign a revision when checking
items in, so if you've only corrected a spelling error on a drawing, you
could check it back in with the same revision, even though a new version was
created.

6) Len Mar (and others) suggest having a separate folder/database with
"released" pdf's of drawings in it, and that this is all that is accessed by
non-designers.
I have used such a system before, and it has benefits. If your PDM system
is smart enough, the creation of the pdf file can be automatically triggered
by someone signing-off the item, separate from the act of checking it back
in the vault.

A drawback of such a system that only does this with pdf's of drawings, is
that there is frequently the need to exchange data with suppliers &
customers in many formats such as dwg, dxf and 3D geometry in parasolid,
STEP, IGES etc
All these other formats may still be uncontrolled, unless the PDM system
also handles this well.
Can PDMWorks do this? - if not, are there other systems that are affordable
for a small company (20 employees, 5 designers)?

Cheers,
John Harland

 

Seth,

Yes...or any other similar part you chose to check, whether or not in the
vault.

It wasn't automated to the extent I think you're suggesting. However, if
there was one part that was checked out, and it had in-context relationships
to 10 other parts in the assembly which were read-only, I belive it did tell
you that these parts were now out of date - but this was not done by a
geometry check.
The checking of an assembly was a separate function, which did a sort of
BOM-compare.

John Harland

 

6) Len Mar (And others)

I'm using DBWorks 2005 Enterprise version.

I used PDF's as an example but any file type could be incorporated into
the schema with some cut-and-paste script.
Latest beta release (DBWorks 2006) I am testing will allow you to link
the external type file with the part - meaning if the model is checked
out the drawing and external file will be as well (they all need to be
changed as part of an ECR/ECO process). This could be set up to work
with the released database as well.

As it automatically generates zipped archived files of the various
revisions it can use the SW compare function to between revisions.
A custom script file (the API is open) would allow you to recursively
traverse down a tree and generate the reports/views you need.

DBWorks has a service that runs on each workstation. It comprises of a
script library DBWACL that uses MS commands to change file permissions
based on the state of the models. I suspect you could duplicate this
library with custom code.

However, for the same cost you probably could buy DBWorks and have its
full function out-of-the box rather than a small sub-set.

Len

 

Yes, this is true. Kalle summarized it quite well.

Yes, that's right. This is one of the big dangers of doing in-context design
and a reason that many people break the relations at some point in the
design, often when they release to production. Of course, this means that
you now need to remember how changes would have happened and make the
changes manually, but at least you can often see what needs to be done.


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

 

Hi

Everyone I know, clients and subcontractors, who use SolidWorks store
information such as finish part number etc in custom properties in the
part file. These custom properties are reported on the drawing. Hence if
you change a finish property you also have to change the revision.

IMHO the revision of the model and the drawing should always be the
same. I understand your reasoning, for example if I have left a
dimension off a drawing that has been issued and I then add that
dimension the drawing has changed but not the part. In this case I would
still bump the revision of the part which is also driving the revision
on the drawing. The description in the revision table would just note
"dimension added"

 

What if you make a change to the model which requires a model up-rev,
but doesn't require a drawing rev. Something like fully dimensioning a
sketch, changing a color, or modeling the same finished geometry a
different way, adding comments, feature names, cleaning up modeling
errors or removing external references? Plus, does this mean that you
can't have rev levels of your part before you start your drawing?

I always encourage people to keep the part and drawing rev separate, but
to add the model (assy or part) rev as a note on the drawing title
block. Keeping them the same seems like an unnecessary requirement that
invites mistakes.

matt

 

I must not have had my first coffee before I wrote that.

In the situation you describe I would leave the revision in the part and
hence the drawing the same. The drawing would change slightly, two
property fields would change (the two with the blue arrows in the gif
below) but the Revision would stay unchanged.

The revision (the one the red arrow pointing at it, in the gif) controls
whether the drawing will be reissued to suppliers or even if it is
reprinted for the document file.

The “PDMRevision’s†(blue arrows pointing to them) of the part and the
drawing are for in-house document traceability only and will quickly
have differing revisions (or as TOP put it versions). Notes relating to
the "PDMRevision" are maintained solely in PDMWorks if necessary.

http://www.solidengineering.co.nz/swhelp/pdmrevsion.gif

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz