I am currently in a company in the process of acquiring an ERP. We have targeted two vendors and I would like to collect feedback on the use of ERP in connection with SolidWorks.
To illustrate my request, in my previous job, many tasks under the ERP were done manually. For example, when creating a part:
I designed it in SolidWorks, updated the fields (except for the article code).
I was submitting a code creation request to purchases.
Once my request was processed, I received the code that I added to my empty field, updated my plan to display the code, then went to the ERP to fill in all the fields (plan number, revision, designation, material, etc.). I manually exported my plan in PDF format (plan number concatenated with the revision) as well as the other necessary file formats that I linked under the ERP to my article code.
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In case of revision, I updated the plan, exported the PDF and other formats as needed, returned to the ERP, updated the revision field, and then relinked the PDF plan and other files under the article code.
Suffice to say that for a code, it was manageable. However, with a large number, it became tedious and cumbersome.
I want to automate as many things as possible, on the one hand to save time, and on the other to avoid human error.
Naturally, publishers often offer ERP as the master. But couldn't we pass SolidWorks as the master base of SEO? And the ERP would pick the elements from our database (which at the moment, does not exist strictly speaking, we do not use PDM or PLM), would it work?
There you go, thank you to the people who will enlighten me.
I hope that you will have answers to your questions quickly because a very similar subject has been dealt with these days. Here you have real experts in the field of PDM and ERP and PLM
In the meantime, here is what Visiativ has to say on the subject
We have not done a thorough integration between Solidworks and CAPM. We stopped at importing bills of materials (via an old tool developed by visiativ between Solidworks and Cegid: there must be better/simpler now). This is the main thing so as not to forget any pieces. Those that are already codified in CAPM link directly, for those where the CAPM article does not exist the line is of a different color and we know that the article must be created in the CAPM.
We also don't make automatic links with our pdfs (probably a mistake but our pdfs are well organized so it's easy to find with the plan number).
What you want to do is beautiful on paper but it can quickly generate big problems (Solidworks which makes a mess in the CAPM following an intern who dismantled the family of parts of a screw with 50 configs for example). You also often have more information in CAPM than in 3D (standards, specifications, etc.) so you would have to fill in everything in 3D if you go to the end of this logic. If you start to also put information like supplier or know if the item is bought or manufactured, you may find yourself constantly modifying 3ds to update information that has nothing to do with the definition of the product.
Indeed, Solidworks must be the master and ERP the slave.
Then in bulk you can bulk export the properties of your Solidworks files via the mycad utilities for example (a CSV file) for integration into the ERP.
In short, everything is doable, no need for EPDM (CSV files can do the trick and a single directory for exchanges). You "just" have to do series of tests.
Hi everyone, We have developed an in-house application allowing a SW link to our ERP with the following features:
Inserting images of 3D parts
Updating revisions from SW to ERP
Insertion of BOMs in SW to create subassemblies used for supplies
For this, we work with SW's Document Manager API and we insert or modify the data in the ERP SQL database or with text files. I don't know which ERP you use but you must have in mind that this work is very personalized and that it requires development on both sides so it requires time and at a cost.
