PDM Works - your opinion

Hi,
I'm planning to purchase 4 PDM works seats but before doing so I would
appreciate your opinion and sharing any experiences with implementation,
best strategy, etc.

TIA
Irek

 

My opinion may be somewhat biased by the fact that I implement PDMWorks for
paying customers.

I think it is a fine departmental PDM app as long as you know what it is
good for and what it is not good for.

First, don't get PDMWorks thinking that you are going to customize it and
tie it to your MRP system. PDMW is flexible, but not very customizable.

If you are a big Oracle or SQL buff and want to write scripts, they won't
do you any good with PDMW, since it does not run on a database. It uses
several text files to store information

If your IT dept is looking for job security, PDMW can't provide much of
that either. It is meant to be installed and administered by engineering
users.

Don't expect to install this on a non-Windows server. The executables must
reside on a win box.

No one is going to make a career out of PDMW unlike some of the high end
pdm apps.

When you go to implement it, I think that it is well worth your time to get
someone who has done other PDM implementations and knows PDMW cold. I'd be
willing to donate my time if you can put up the air fare to Austrailia. )

Best of luck,

Matt

 

After comparing all the low-end and mid-range PDM systems, including
PDMWorks, I settled on DBWorks. I just felt that in the long run a system
running on a database was going to grow with us, rather than limit us.
Here, we run it on MSDE, which is a public-domain version of MS SQL. Since
I've got some roots in corporate wide document management and SQL I was very
comfortable with the choice. Out of the box DBWorks uses an Access database
but we immediately converted to MSDE before even launching the software. It
is very usable out of the box and can be customized thru scripts or the API
or thru the VAR that sold it to you. I have it set up to query a user for a
"file" name and it then automatically creates a file and if necessary a
folder structure on the server based on the project/subproject/etc. I've
shielded the users from having to navigate the server folders but by default
you tell it where to put files and then it manages them. You can also have
it name files automatically to further shield the user from file info but in
our consulting business, that would be of little use when we have to turn
over a project to the client. You wouldn't want to have to rename all the
files so they could understand what's what. In our system, you just
right-click a project, "zip all" and boom, ready for the client. If a
client provides us with their part numbers, we can even rename each file so
when they get the project it makes complete sense to them.

Have a look, it's quite good, And good luck!

http://62.101.95.130/mechworks/index.asp

- Eddy

 

Irek,

With PDMWorks you are pretty much locked into their way of doing things.
There is not much you can configure.

The one thing I really miss is a way to fix revision mistakes. I have users
who inadvertently bump revisions when nothing has changed. There is no way
to fix this kind of problem.

 

I am not trying to contradict you. But there is a way to overwrite
revisions if this is what you are talking about. In the admin side, there
is an option that allows you to do all that stuff we were always told you
ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO...

If that's not what you are referring to I'll be crawling back into my hole
now.

 

I think he was probably talking about taking out rev B and rolling back to
rev A. Unless you're talking about deleting a part from the vault then
putting it back in at an earlier rev, I don't know how to do it.

matt

 

Thank you all for sharing your opinions - frankly I'm still quite a bit
confused but hopefuly this will clearup as we'll start using it.
Thanks again,
Irek

 

I actually opened up the admin console this time instead of using my
pathetically weak memory. The commands I'm thinking of are: Allow revision
bumping and Allow revision overwrite.

The idea I was thinking of is, Someone checks a part into the vault,
thinking it was mark as a working copy, but notices that it is now at the
next revision level instead of working copy. With Revision bumping you can
change the revision back to Working copy......