How do you manage to manage the various part revisions and particularly the associated drawings?
At the moment, I have a counter (created via MyCADServices' SmartProperties, really useful btw ...) that I manually in-crete to set a new revision. So I create a drawing per room, which is totally hellish and a considerable waste of time, especially if only the position of a hole differs between 2 versions. I'm not even talking about the multiplication of files that it creates and therefore the mic-mac that it can create...
How do you manage part revisions and drawings? Do you add a new sheet (during a new revision) to the original drawing? Do you create a drawing for each revision? I'd like to simplify my life with that. Thank you for sharing your methods!
Hello, I don't have any utility. Initially, I used the revision field in ownership of the part as a plan revision (link in the title block). I ended up stopping because indeed the room was revised and the plan too because you can very well decide to change the layout, add notes, etc... without having revised the play.
So I decided to have, like you, a revision of the part or assembly model, and a revision for the plan. I increment them manually via form when working on one or the other. In none of the file names does the revision appear. This way, the part file remains the same and evolves over time, as does the plan (with its revision table too).
I only have a history of the different versions of the plan in export in neutral format thanks to my macro which converts in a zip file, both the plan in PDF/DWG and the models associated with this plan in PDF3D/STEP/IGES and which appropriately names these exported files and the ZIP with the revision index.
I don't keep a history of the source files, if it's really necessary, then I ZIP the sources and name the file with the relevant index but it's very rare.
We don't all have the same needs, I think you'd be delighted with SolidWorks ePDM.
The PDM solution meets your needs. It allows, among other things, to manage the versions/revisions of files. Standard PDM is included in the Pro version of solidworks
@Yannick.petit: It does look like this. You no longer indicate the revision of the document in the file name as a result? What is the difference between ePDM and PDM?
Is it an appriori to say that PDM slows down a lot of solidworks? That's what I often hear about it. Also, I feel like PDM is too global (I just attended a webinar) compared to my current need and I imagine that the price is quite prohibitive...
EPDM can indeed respond to the solution but it is indeed quite expensive (and it will soon increase since SW will no longer offer SQL licenses soon: you will therefore have to pay for EPDM licenses and maintenance to solidworks plus SQL licenses and maintenance to Microsoft).
The use of EPDM makes SW heavier (transition time or shorter) but brings advantages: total traceability of plan approvals (long live quality audits :-) ), possibility of going back in time to reopen an assembly as it really was 6 months or 3 years ago (EPDM recharges the different versions of all the components), limits accidental overwriting of files (not default all already approved files are read-only), SW work with all files locally on the workstation (much faster to make a temporary backup during work than to save on the network especially if the assemblies/parts are heavy)....
Regardless of EPDM, we have a rule of having 3D and 2D with the same revision index. It's clearer but it makes 'useless' revisions on the 3D (adding a detail or correcting a note on the 2D plan without touching the 3D).