EditProduct Data Management (PDM)
EditUnderstanding Parent-Child File Relationships
Solid Edge, like most CAD packages, will work directly off of a file system, either network or local. However, unlike many other kinds of software, where each file created is a stand-alone item, most CAD files are linked in some way to other CAD files, creating parent-child relationships. For example, a drawing file (.dft) points to a part (.prt), or an assembly (.asm), or a sheet metal (.psm) file. Assembly files, as the name implies, are made up of other parts, assemblies, or sheet metal files. Thus it is important for the user to realize that when you create a drawing or an assembly (and in a couple of other special cases) the geometry needed for those files is not actually
embedded in those files. Rather there are pointers that direct the computer to the location of where the necessary "components" are. Obviously, then it is important that after creating a drawing or an assembly or any other file that establishes parent-child relationships, that no one accidentally (or intentionally!) re-names, moves, or deletes any of the children needed by the parents to open. If you do so, when the next user attempts to open the parent assembly or drawing an error will be presented to the user as the child file cannot be found.
EditImplications for Product and File Data Management
These parent-child file relationships are cause for concern if, for example, you wish to "revise" a part file, leaving a copy of the part in its original state (at its original revision) and create a new version of the part at the new state (at the new revision).
For example, let's say I have a part, called widget_A.par, and I wish to make a change, or revision to that part, rolling its "revision level" from revision A to revision B. Note that you cannot simply rename widget_A.par to widget_B.par at the file system level. If you do this, two things will happen. First, you won't have an original copy of revision A preserved for future reference. Second, and more importantly,
any drawings or assemblies that point to widget_A.par will not be able to find the widget_B.par file!
Solid Edge comes with a file management tool called "View and Markup". This software contains a tool called "Revision Manager". In fact, since so few people use the "view and markup" capabilities of the tool it is usually referred to simply as "Revision Manager".
Revision Manager is the ONLY tool that should be used to re-name or copy Solid Edge CAD files. This is because Revision Manager will give you the option of preserving any parent-child relationships when you rename or copy a CAD file. If you do this outside of Revision Manager, as in the above example, these parent-child relationships will get broken.
In a "non-managed" environment, that is, when working directly on a network or local file system, contrary to the name of the software tool you actually cannot "Revise" or "Raise the Revision Level" of CAD data as you would expect. Solid Edge, when working on a file system, does not provide any means for revision control whereby you have, for example, revision A of a part and revision B of a part and the software recognizes that one part is simply a different revision of the other.
What Revision Manager
will allow you to do is COPY a part, and you can, through a descriptive file name, create a new "revision" of a part. For example, you can open widget_A.par inside of Revision Manager, and then COPY the part to widget_B.par. However as far as the software is concerned these are not actually revisions of each other but rather completely independent parts. Only a human can tell by looking at the file name that the parts are supposed to be revisions of one another.
In order to preserve parent-child file relationships when copying or renaming files in Revision Manager, the user must first perform a "where used", and you must tell Revision Manager which directories to scan. Then what Revision Manager does is interrogate every single file in the targeted directories and asks it if it has a parent-child relationship with the file you are copying or renaming.
If you have a large number of files, this process can take a long time. For example, a directory structure containing 20,000 files on a network can take around 30 minutes to do a single where-used.
After Revision Manager has done a where used, and the parent-child results are displayed, the user has the option of directing the parents to either update, copy themselves, or do nothing.
EditPDM
Product Data Management (PDM) software is a tool that is designed to help provide revision control and file access permission capability for CAD (and frequently non-CAD) data. It is usually proprietary, and is usually written by the CAD software vendor because only they are able to provide the necessary "hooks" into their own CAD software and so maintain the important parent-child relationships between CAD files.
A managed PDM environment has several advantages over working directly from a file system.
First and foremost is that the PDM database keeps track of all the parent-child relationships, so doing where-used operations take seconds instead of minutes or hours.
Secondly, PDM databases usually have provisions for controlling file access based on the release state of the documents. You can control who can open, edit, create and delete data based on their permissions and based on whether the file is in a work, pre-release, released, obsolete, etc. state.
Thirdly, PDM databases allow for
actual revisioning of documents. Unlike Revision Manager which simply makes an independent copy of the document being "revised", PDM tools allow you to actually increment the revision level of the document being revised, and the software recognizes that the versions are actually different versions of the same part. This has the benefit of allowing the user to open assemblies using different stored versions of the available components in the database. For example, you could choose to open the assembly "as saved" - that is, using the versions of the components that were used when the assembly was last saved. Or, you can choose to open the assembly "load latest", which tells the software to go and find the latest versions of all the needed components to open the assembly.
Another advantage of PDM software is that generally PDM will make your engineering and design data available and viewable to non-engineering and non-CAD users within the enterprise without requiring these employees to be trained or expert in the use of CAD tools to view the data.
Siemens offers 3 different PDM tools:
InsightInsight is an inexpensive PDM tool that is built upon Microsoft SharePoint Services and basically integrates managing Solid Edge data into a SharePoint environment.
Whilst there are instructions for set up, for anyone without knowledge of SQL databases and reasonable IT skills, it is not easy to configure (but then again, as PDM is a complex subject and normally requires heavy configuration and tailoring to suit a company's business processes, most PDM implementations are not for the "faint of heart" or the average "lay" person). Because Insight is built upon SharePoint technology, the documentation provided by Siemens with Insight is minimal as it is assumed that a basic knowledge of Microsoft SharePoint is required before attempting to implement Insight. As SharePoint is a Microsoft product, Siemens does not provide support for SharePoint, only for the add-on Insight product itself.
Key Points:
-Probably the main point of using Insight is to control links. With Insight it is very hard to break a link. You can change file names at will, and the link will not be broken. Very liberating.
-Insight indexes attributes and provides Draft file full text search. This allows extremely fast searching of a large database of Solid Edge data.
-Insight manages revisions. This means that in an assembly, you can simply right click on a part and create a new revision in place. Revisions are managed by appending the revision to the filename.
Insight controls document status (in work, released, obsolete etc) by moving the files into different document libraries. This is in contrast to simply changing their permission status. This is both good and bad.
Advantages:
-You can look at the released folder and know that everything you are looking at is available to make. This is good when non CAD users have to use these files for production etc.
-Rubbish files get left behind, which simplifies housekeeping. Superseded parts get put in obsolete, so again, you know where they are
-Insight automatically moves the files into different folders, so you don't move anything yourself.
-Draft files can be set to revise automatically if a part or assembly they reference is revised
Disadvantages:
-For one project, you have three different locations (but mainly two) where your files could be, which inevitably means more browsing at some point. On the other hand, this actually highlights one of the advantages of a PDM system and the overall paradigm shift that PDM systems represent. Because PDM systems are basically nothing more than databases, the ability to perform searches including complex queries and have the search results returned almost instantaneously negate the need to browse through files and folders to find your information. Unfortunately this shift away from using file and folder techniques can sometimes be difficult for end-users to overcome.
-Whilst Insight moves files around for you, the only way to do this is to use "Life Cycle Assistant" which is in Revision Manager. This is a slightly long-winded process as there is a lot of searching to be done for related draft files and older revisions. Because they are in SQL however, the searches are relatively instantaneous.
-Insight is targeted at single site workgroups and relies on folder/file based management logic.
-Whilst not a perfect product by any means, and certainly one that appears to be at least partially ignored by Siemens development, Insight can be a very powerful tool. The greatest liberation may be that you can change file names at will and no link be broken.
With the release of Solid Edge ST2 Insight is now supported on SharePoint 3.0. Microsoft has greatly improved the functionality and usage of SharePoint 3.0 over SharePoint 2.0 and Insight is able to leverage Microsoft's improved functionality of SharePoint.
Teamcenter ExpressTeamcenter Express is a pre-configured Teamcenter environment designed with the SMB in mind. Because Express is pre-configured, the costs to implement when compared to a full-blown Teamcenter implementation can be significantly cheaper. The costs for implementing Teamcenter Express will vary depending upon your specific site and requirements.
Teamcenter is now supported with Solid Edge 64-bit. 64-bit Solid Edge support for Teamcenter was introduced with ST2.
TeamcenterTeamcenter goes far beyond simply being a "PDM" system as it has a wide breadth of functions far outside of the traditional PDM realm. It is highly configurable and can be tailored to fit your business processes.
EditThird-party PDM software
Design Data Manager (DDM)There is a software package called Design Data Manager (DDM) (
www.designdatamanager.com) that is a PDM software tool designed to manage data for a variety of CAD packages, including Solid Edge as well as non-CAD data. Current pricing as of October 2009 is approximately $1500 USD per cite plus $495 USD annual maintenance.
The latest release (October 2008) now supports Alternate Position Alternate Assemblies, but not yet Family of Parts, though this is being worked on.
ArasAras (
http://www.aras.com) is an open-source (the only viable open-source?) PLM & PDM solution that is built on the Microsoft enterprise platform. Aras has multiple CAX connectors available, including a Solid Edge integration. While the software is free the integration with Solid Edge comes from a 3rd party and requires the purchase of a support package for Aras and the integration.