Solid Edge includes easy to use and easy to administer tools for managing
growing volumes of design data with its built-in data management capabilities.
For this demonstration we'll use this sewing machine model created by Solid
Edge user Bernina. As you can see it has many parts and sub assemblies - we want to
know if all of the parts are at the latest revision and if they are released
for manufacturing. We simplify the display to show the internal components
and select the get latest command from the Data Management ribbon. The parts
that have a later revision available are highlighted - these are the ball clamps
that are shown in red - all other parts are ghosted and are made non-selectable.
Parts with a later revision available are also flagged in the Assembly Path-
Finder. The command bar has options to turn off the display of the ghosted
parts as well as options to toggle between highlighting all parts with
later revisions, or only those where the later revisions have a status of
released. You can individually select the parts you want to replace with the
latest revision, or do this for all parts. You can see in the assembly pathfinder
that the ball clamp is now at revision B - and the red check shows it's released.
Next we'll create a new revision of the sub-assembly that includes the clamp. The
Revision command provides exact control over selecting and revising parts,
assemblies and drawings. Here we use the New option to create a new revision of
the sub-assembly. Note that the associated draft file is also changed to
the next revision level.
This guide model is another part that was highlighted when we ran the Get
Latest and is flagged with an icon in the assembly pathfinder. The tool tip
also shows available revision information. Selecting this part and running Revisions, we can see the complete revision history of this part,
and we can display some thumbnail previews of these revisions.
You can see that there is a Released Revision B available and we select this
revision for the replaced operation. You can also specify if you want to replace
this individual occurrence, or all occurrences in the sub-assembly, or the
complete assembly. You can also create a new part - instead of a new revision -
when performing a replace operation. Here we'll create a new part for this bracket
by copying the existing part and applying a new part number. A new drawing
is created at the same time. Using these revision management tools you can create
individual records of a machine or piece of equipment as it was delivered to a
customer, and keep track of the machine as it is maintained and customized. The
new part number can be generated automatically using the Assign All
option - this helps eliminate the possibility of duplicate file names and
part numbers. Synchronous technology makes it very easy for you to make the
required design change - in this example we quickly remove the holes and modify
the geometry for one of the flanges in the bracket.
Open Drawing allows you to directly open the associated drawing for a part. Here
we use this command to quickly open the drawing of the bracket and update it to
incorporate the new design. Note that the title block is automatically updated to
include the new part number. The built-in Solid Edge data management capabilities
help users to make design changes easily without being too restrictive and
without requiring complex and expensive PDM software. Now we'll open another sub-
assembly and use the Design Manager tool to work on this assembly model. We use
the Find Duplicates option to detect any duplicate file names or part numbers.
This situation can arise when Solid Edge files are brought in from an external
supplier, or when an old design project is accessed. The absence of a green check
against some of the parts indicates at least one duplicate file exists. The top
line on the right-hand side of the dialog shows the file used in the
assembly, the line underneath shows where the duplicate file is located. Duplicates
can be due to the same file name or the same document number being used.
Additional data in the dialog lets you determine if you are using the correct
file by seeing if there's an Associated draft file and when it was last saved. If
the duplicate found is actually the correct file it can be easily replaced
into the assembly. These built-in data management capabilities are a standard
part of Solid Edge - you can start using them after running the Windows Indexer
on the folders where you store your Solid Edge files. They help speed the
completion of tedious data management tasks and minimize errors in the product
development and manufacturing process.