Engineering Change Requests in SOLIDWORKS PDM

Many companies face challenges with documenting design changes, and setting appropriate sign-offs. In this video, Javelin’s Senior Application Specialist; Vicky Guignard, demonstrates how to use an Engineering Change Request template that is fully integrated into your SOLIDWORKS PDM system. Helping to manage your engineering changes and automate your workflows.

Engineering Change Requests in SOLIDWORKS PDM

Why Engineering Change Requests?

Over the years, many companies have asked us to help manage their engineering changes and automate their workflows. Typically, this process affects many different departments and working with these files can be challenging. To assist with this, Javelin has taken common requirements from numerous companies and has done the administration work to implement a great Engineering Change Request (ECR) that is fully integrated into your SOLIDWORKS PDM system.

Managing the history of a file

SOLIDWORKS PDM will automatically do the following as the files evolve:

1. Coordinate who’s working and updating a file
2. Create new versions of a file
3. Keep a recorded history with comments, names and dates
4. Control access permissions
5. Update properties and titleblocks appropriately
6. Stamp released revision information
7. Allow controlled access and comparison to previous versions

Documenting and approving changes

This requires carefully implemented processes and company standards. Here is a quick list of what SOLIDWORKS PDM ECR accomplishes:

1. Generate a standard SOLIDWORKS PDM ECR from a standardized form
2. Automate project, date and login information into the document
3. Get approvals for change
4. Track progress on outstanding ECR’s for engineering and monitor bottlenecks through reporting
5. Notify team of new change requests automatically
6. Link change requests to files for the purpose of linking them to specific revisions
7. Track billable ECR’s to ensure invoicing occurs when they are implemented
8. Categorize by urgency to deal with high priority items first