SERIAL NUMBERS Archives

16Feb 2020 by admin 14 Comments

PDM FRUSTRATION LIST – things that keep us from using the full Potential of the SOLIDWORKS PDM

Administration, BOM, CAD, PDM, PDM Dispatch, SERIAL NUMBERS

The heading might sound harsh so do not get us wrong, we still believe that Product Data Management software is a must for engineering and fabrication companies. But lucky (or unlucky) person who will be responsible of implementing PDM system should understand some simple principles before doing so and experience working with different companies to understand different situations is a strong recommendation. Managing implementation without experience is doomed to fail. Furthermore, there are many things going on with SOLIDWORKS PDM that seem straight forward to solve but in reality, will be one very painful challenge. The workaround seems to be custom macros etc, but those will increase implementation complexity, cost and time significantly. And if the system is new for users, it makes it near impossible to learn in…

Mirroring – A lot of headache behind simple concept – Part 1/3

Administration, CAD, Features, SERIAL NUMBERS, SOLIDWORKS

Mirroring and symmetry are like some sort of an ancient code that is visible everywhere in the world. Most living creatures are somewhat symmetric. This also holds true in the technical world, where objects have a tendency to be symmetrical. There are many places in even simple design that need symmetry -for example using both left and right-hand components. Due to this, the first reaction may be that this is going to be easy and let's get to it, but since we're working in a not-so-perfect CAD-PDM world, it's best to be prepared and to build a common understanding of how these things are handled. (more…)

Serial Number Generation Tool

Administration, CAD, SERIAL NUMBERS, SOLIDWORKS

First of all, I would like to thank Teyfik Eren Erez for a nice tool that generates the serial numbers. This tool generates a new file name (from serial number generator) for SOLIDWORKS files and is designed mainly for either small teams or a single designer. The user only has to fill out the boxes for the prefix, the suffix and the assembly. However, in this article, I would like to explain how to use this tool according to the variables system proposed in the “CAD Administration Handbook for SolidWorks”. All the rights for this program belong to the creator and the latest version can be downloaded from here (mirror). We've used this tool ourselves and have experienced no issues, however use caution and test it out, before going all in…