Hi everyone!
In our company, we have recently been asked to include bolts in our designs in order to provide the workshop with a nice little list of components to order. I would like to have your opinions on this subject. Are there people who are already doing it and how do you manage it?
- How to proceed in sets and sub-assemblies
- How to manage the parts and bolts bill of materials in drawings?
- Is it possible to export an excel table from this hardware store?
Thanks in advance
First of all, I would start, if possible, by making 2 configurations: one without screws, one with. Indeed, the screws will consume a lot of resources and it can be useful to you in terms of nomenclatures.
Depending on the number of S/E levels, it may indeed be interesting to put it only at the final level.
Another way to do this is to use components that are empty of geometry, but it's less easy to check that you haven't forgotten any.
The excel export is easy if you make a nomenclature in the drawing but I don't think the link is kept so beware in case of modification.
For us we have been including screws for 2-3 years now. It's time but no more worries about missing screws in the workshop.
For the method we use smartbom (Visiativ's Mycad utility) to export an excel file with a well-defined grid, then we export this file directly into our ERP which transforms all the industrial supply into the order line and all the manufacturing parts into production orders.
Smartbom sorts the excel columns by family screws, cutting, mechanics, industrial supplies.
As a result, very simplified control for the screws and directly attributed to a case.
On the other hand, additional study time and slightly increased assembly heaviness.
And as stefbeno says, there is no link between the excel and the nomenclature, if modification you have to redo the nomenclature.
Hello
For us, it's always been integrating hardware into our S/E.
Screws (and other hardware) are coded according to their types, materials, diameters and lengths in Epdm.
They appear in the nomenclatures on our plans like all the other parts.
The transfer to our ERP is done using a "homemade" program in which it is possible to export the list of hardware included in the head assembly of the machine to be manufactured.
Kind regards
For my part, I always integrate the screws, just to make sure of the dimensions, the lengths of the screws and the real weights with the screws. Then, a bill of materials will be exported directly to the purchasing department.
At the risk of making more than one scream! I use the ToolBox (a tool often criticized because it is poorly mastered!) It is not user-friendly to set up, you have to spend time on it at the beginning but then it is a huge time saver. Toolbox files are smaller than "part" files, your constraints are automatically generated, as is your fastener size, by a simple "drag and drop". In terms of the number of clicks to insert a screw, I think you divide it by 2 or 3 using the toolbox. You can also make a config just by removing all the toolbox components in 2 clicks.
At the beginning you have to start by creating a personal standard, then add all your dimensions, you can also insert custom properties, rename documents, configurations.... There is a gateway with Excel to do all this. You will find tutorials on the net. Once you understand the procedure, it goes pretty fast.
The toolbox doesn't stop at the screws, you can convert any part into a Toolbox file, there's a Solidworks utility for that.
So much for the advertising of a tool that is too little used!
So what is the best way (if any) to work properly with the screws in the designs, and how to come up with a list at the end of the study?
Do you have a typical approach or a tutorial by chance?
Thank you
Hello
The best way is the one that will best fit into the overall operation of your company and it depends on how screws and other hardware are managed in the workshop (in stock, ordered on demand, ...).
As said above, for us each piece of hardware is coded, with of course a list of preferential choices. The designer therefore integrates the screw (or other) into the assembly (a small macro to sort everything in alphabetical order):
which has the effect of making it appear in the nomenclature:
From there, it is possible to save the bill of materials in xls format and do what you want with it (the export can be automated by macro). This file can be attached to the plan file for transmission to the workshop, it depends on the procedures to be followed in the company...
Kind regards
Hello, @d.roger
A little intervention in parallel with the subject, I see that all your screws are stacked in your tree which gives crazy trees. It is possible to automatically create folders by entity, which considerably reduces the size of the trees.
May the force be with you.
Hello OBI WAN,
Yes I know this function but we don't use it more than that because our trees are not that big, we work a lot in functional sub-assemblies and these rarely have more than 50 to 60 parts, a question of habits too...
Kind regards