In SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2011 many of the commands that I used from the right-click menu, in Explorer Vault view, were moved to SolidWorks Enterprise PDM menu bar. I missed being able to right-click and quickly “clear the local cache”. Luckily in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012, menus can now be customized to include my favorite commands, including adding “clear local cache” to the right-click menu.
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3DVIA Composer, Data Management, Javelin News & Events, Simulation FEA, SolidWorks 3D Design, Training 2 Comments
San Diego February 12th-15th – What do you get when you have almost 6000 people, hundreds of great SolidWorks technical sessions and hundreds of exhibitors in a partner pavilion to satisfy every technical SolidWorks requirement? SolidWorks World 2012! Check out the video below for highlights of Solidworks World 2012 from Javelin’s perspective:
Javelin attended this year and captured all the excitement. Watch the highlights as we step into the partner pavilion exploring the vendors showcasing their SolidWorks related gear and technology! See how CSWP’s were treated to amazing event on the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier. One morning SolidWorks even gave everyone attending a sneak peek at the SolidWorks 2013, it looks awesome! All this and a great block party for more than 4000 people (thanks to HP and SolidWorks).
For one evening a few blocks of the historical Gaslamps district was closed off for great food, beverages and entertainment on every corner. Javelin attended, busy learning more about the great technology we support. Some of the Javelin folks were even showcasing technical information in the breakout sessions. Next year SolidWorks World is off to Orlando, Florida!
Did you attend? How was your experience at SolidWorks World 2012? Will you be attending the 15th SolidWorks World in Orlando at the Swan and Dolphin on January 20th-23rd 2013? Please let us know.
If you’re reading this post, you’ve likely wondered at some point about how you can help rationalize what may be perceived by some as “intangible” – the return on your investment for implementing a data management solution. Many of our customers have justified the purchase of EPDM because they simply wanted to get better with the right systems in place, but with today’s tight margins and cash flows, CFO’s are more frequently relying on their team to prove that there is a valid return on investment that is competitive with other investment options. Calculating a return on investment for SolidWorks Enterprise PDM does not need to be complex. It can be as simple as estimating some potential time savings in comparison to current methods and multiplying it by the number of potential users and average cost per employee.
So you’ve implemented SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, you’re seeing some benefits, but what’s next?
With the growing list of customers that have invested in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of common services and added functionality that customers have been requesting from us. The purpose is to let our EPDM customer base know that you are not on your own and there are lots you can do with the system to get a bigger impact on your business. This list is by no means all inclusive and if there is anything you would like help with related to EPDM, please do not hesitate to ask us.
1) Upgrading vault to 2012
Our most common services for our clients are assisting with upgrades to the latest release. Enterprise PDM 2012 offers a number of enhancements including the new integrated search functionality, but most importantly offers support for SolidWorks 2012. With so many people relying on the vault, it becomes risky business taking it offline for an upgrade but our professional implementation team know exactly how to do this without missing a beat.
If you’re like most people, you’ve built a list of Resolutions for the New Year. If you’re anything like me, then you’ve put “Find ways to work smarter & faster” on that list of To Do’s.
Enter EPDM.
EPDM is to data management what SolidWorks is to 3D design, because it’s intended to make your life easier. It is dead simple to use (it looks just like Windows!), it reduces search times to pretty much instantaneous results, eliminates file redundancy and clutter, and allows designers to collaborate more effectively with one another & with others in your organization.
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM
Many of our customers tell us that SolidWorks EPDM is saving them time, reducing costs, and just generally making their work flow more smoothly. A lot of them have seen the benefits of design reuse by employing EPDM, so when I read this white paper (5 Ways PDM Can Help You Succeed Through Design Reuse) over the Holidays, I couldn’t help but draw the comparison between their success and my own desire to work better/faster/smarter this year. You really should give it a read.
I’m going to start my year off with a good plan in place to be better in 2012.
What about you?
I laugh sometimes when I do demonstrations of EPDM because I feel like I’m demonstrating something which everybody lives and breaths every day when they are working with their Windows computers. I’ve even been tempted to stop a demonstration after a few clicks before because at the core, EPDM is simply Windows Explorer with control and speed. The everyday chaos of Windows Explorer can finally be tamed.
Special functionality of EPDM aside, I thought it would be worthwhile to put a quick list together about why this integration is so important. This list is really about the great Windows Explorer functionality which will simply continue to work as you’d expect. This can not be underestimated because it has made a world of difference to our customers and the success of the project.
1. Adoption
Adoption rates are much greator within companies becuase familiarity to what is already being used
2. Training
Training is quicker because users come in with half the knowledge already. Most end user training classes are for about 4 hours. It is rare to need to spend more than a day on training to really get a good handle with how to get the benefits from the system.
3. Enhancements
EPDM automatically leverages any new enhancements to Windows Explorer. When Windows 7 came out, it was a little bit to get used to but overall a much superior system. I was excited that EPDM flawlessly worked on top of it and leveraged a lot of the new naviation techniques.
4. Favourites
Redirects to favourite folders in EPDM can be managed identically to how Windows Explorer manages them. This makes is easy to continue being more productive by keeping commonly accessed work close at hand.
5. Hyperlinks
The same way you can send someone a hyperlink to a shared network drive, you can send someone the link to your folder or file. It will automatically have them navigate to their own view of the EPDM vault. These hyperlinks are identical to what get’s sent out in e-mail notifications which will always point the recipient to the latest file even if there has been a new update. (no more resending!)
6. Copy and Paste
How awesome is it that you can just copy and paste or drag and drop files into and out of the EPDM vault!
7. File Types
If you can put it in Windows Explorer, you can put it in EPDM. I’ve had the same conversation a number of times: “What about this file type?” – “Yes, even that file type!”
8. Right Click Menu
The same shortcuts you are used to in Windows Explorer (such as Send to Zip or mail recipient) are available from within the EPDM vault. In fact, EPDM builds the list to add more that can help you get the job done quicker.
9. Searching
Although EPDM has it’s own super fast search tools, it is quite nice that the regular Windows Explorer searching and indexing still works the way you would expect. Especially for searching within applications like SolidWorks.
10. Opening and Saving
This is also a funny one to demonstrate, but the fact remains – Opening and saving in any windows based application can be done directly from the vaulted folder. This saves that tedious extra step of working with a cached area and conciously trying to check items in separately.
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Special thanks to Jeff Sweeney from 3D Vision to give me the idea for this blog from his search favourites: http://www.3dvision.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/11/11/adding-the-vault-to-your-favorites/
The bill of materials is such an important report yet it is surprising the number of users that do not have a formal strategy in place with how the bill of materials is created, edited and approved. I’ve seen clients who don’t even use the SolidWorks bill of materials functionality and continue to use old techniques such as manually counting and entering lines in excel. A number of years ago, there were good excuses why this still might be necissary but it is definitely not the case any more.
To understand a little more about the bill of materials frunctionality within SolidWorks and Enterprise PDM, I wrote down a few different versions of the bom you should be aware of:
When planning your bill of materials process, it would be advantageous to have a good understanding of what you can and can’t do with these BOM’s and the roles that they play. Here are a few thoughts on the matter related to recommended process.
If there is a lot of rearrangement of the bill of materials, removed components, embedded cutlists, etc. then I would recommend the SolidWorks BOM in an Assembly be the best starting point. It provides the most amount of control and manipulation with how the SolidWorks design is constructed. This BOM can be placed directly on a drawing avoiding the need to recompute and rearrange the BOM on the drawing. If the majority of your rearrangement of the BOM is due to what is on the drawing, you may consider starting on the drawing and avoiding the need for the assembly BOM all together.
If control over the bill of materials is required, EPDM can help there. The starting point for the BOM in EPDM is either the “EPDM SolidWorks BOM” which is identical to the SolidWorks Assembly or Drawing BOM or the “EPDM Computed BOM” which is computed by EPDM on the fly based on file reference counts. If there is no modification to the BOM in SolidWorks, these are likely going to be the same. Both of these under revision control with the assembly or drawing which they come from.
To provide an increased amount of control, either one of these BOM’s can be saved to create an “EPDM Saved BOM”. This treats the BOM as it’s own entity and provides the flexibility of changing pretty much what ever you want.
Regardless of the BOM’s you are using in EPDM, you always have the ability to compare and export which can help a tremendous amount to communicate with other departments.
To see a little of the EPDM BOM in action, I would recommend watching this video:
By default, the SolidWorks Workgroup PDM VaultAdmin is not installed during the installation of SolidWorks. In this article we will look at how to include the VaultAdmin during the original installation of SolidWorks or adding it at a later time. Read More »
When SolidWorks is updated to the latest release, the Workgroup PDM Vault must also be updated. The following outlines how this can be done. Read More »
I was reading through the 2012 “What’s New” material for SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and I am excited to hear that there is an add-in becomming available for running EPDM inside of Draftsight. It does sound like you may require Draftsight Premium Pack to give access to the API but the prices on that sound quite good from what I’ve heard and is likely well worth it for all the other benefits as well.
Here is a quick list of the top three things it looks like you will be able to do from within the Draftsight application:
By the looks of the toolbar, you will have access to a variety of other tools as well. With over 1.5M downloads of Draftsight, it is quickly becomming an important player in the CAD industry and it is exciting to have such a well rounded solution to both generate and manage 2D DWG drawings.
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