Managing team's CAD work.

[Wetmelon]

I know our team is using the SolidWorks PDM software. The managers are being very strict about naming conventions, and if something isn't in the right place it gets deleted and you do it again. Also we only have one person checking a part out at any one time, so it's hard to get revision errors.

They're really doing a good job of it this year, from what I can tell.

[Wetmelon]

Originally posted by Wetmelon:
I know our team is using the SolidWorks PDM software. The managers are being very strict about naming conventions, and if something isn't in the right place it gets deleted and you do it again. We've got the check-in/out going nicely, so we might actually have a proper 100% clean CAD file for the first time

They're really doing a good job of it this year, from what I can tell.

[AAce]

We switched to SolidWorks PDM this year and it's great. Once the whole car gets in there you need a decent internet connection (no spotty wifi) to get the new stuff. It runs off a personal computer in one of our member's apartments.

We used to have one person tend the full car CAD and this is infinitely better. It was always a pain designing without the confidence that the CAD on your drive matched everyone else's.

Recommendation: back up the PDM server regularly. Though the designer's should all have updated copies, if your server crashes it's easier to back up from one location than random laptops. (Yes, this happened to us)

[RollingCamel]

With 512Kb connections most have here would it be too slow to be beneficial?

[Jersey Tom]

Originally posted by Wetmelon:
The managers are being very strict about naming conventions, and if something isn't in the right place it gets deleted and you do it again.

I like this. Should have taken that approach when I was in school.

Might have reduced the use of naming conventions like:
"tHE GOODS.sldasm"
"Big ass CAD model.sldasm"

Or going into a folder to find...
"upright v3.sldprt"
"upright v4 final.sldprt"
"upright v4 final for real.sldprt"
"upright v5.sldprt"

Can't make this stuff up...

Edit - Now that I took a quick look at the Solidworks Enterprise PDM video - that totally looks like the way to go. Revision history with comments, a design approval workflow.. good stuff.

[HenningO]

To further prepare yourselves for the life as a "professional mechanical engineer" make a point of using a PDM system.

[AAce]

512k will probably be sufficient as long as it's reliable. The big pain comes when it's an intermittent connection. You'll still probably need some patience though.

[RollingCamel]

Oh bugger...!

I've been asked into looking into proposing a part numbering system for our company.

[wagemd]

We have had a team server on campus (AC and Gigabit) running an FTP service and that's worked fairly well.

[RollingCamel]

My company is running a server which is quite good along with sync, which rarely works and screws things up. However, although we are a very small company yet the IT is so incompetent using 100 Mb/s lan and connecting the server through the router not directly to the network.