SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Data Management

REUSE EXISTING DESIGN

 

• Advanced searching inside Windows Explorer
• Configurable search form presents for users with input fields relating to company specific information
• Built-in file preview helps confirm the desired file is accessed

VERSION AND REVISION

• Versions are automatically created with updated references
• Flexible revision scheme to adhere to company standards
• Increment revisions automatically based on a defined approval process
• Easily retrieve previous versions of parts, assemblies, and drawings.

ELECTRONIC WORKFLOW

• Control access to certain users or groups based on Lifecycle status
• Automatically send notifications to designated users and groups when files have changed the lifecycle status
• Utilize configurable states to add electronic signature information during the approval process
• Easy-to-use graphical workflow tool

MANAGE DIFFERENT FILES

• Easily produce customized bills of materials (BOMs) for different utilisation
• Manage, view, and print document from more than 250 file types including major CAD formats, Microsoft Office files, PDFs, images and animations
• Automatically create neutral files, such as PDFs, eDrawings or STEP
• Take advantage of the many included integrations to popular CAD applications, SOLIDWORKS Electrical, and Microsoft Office

SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Data Management

(Communicate, Organise, Manage and Replicate Data with SOLIDWORKS PDM)

(SOLIDWORKS PDM – Unrivalled Capabilities)

SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Quality /Inspection

DIMXPERT

• Detail designs without errors, automatically dimension “manufacturing” features in 3D.
• Check the dimensional completeness of your design
• Graphically display dimensional status
• Display dimensions created in 3D automatically on the drawing
• Apply +/- or geometric dimension and tolerances
• Ease the Process of Creating manufacturing Dimensions

TOLANALYST

• TolAnalyst uses the input from Dimxpert.
• Powerful tolerance analysis tool that automatically checks the effects of tolerances on parts and assemblies to ensure consistent fit of components and to verify tolerancing schemes before the product goes into production.
• The tolerance analysis can be rerun instantly if a dimensioning or tolerancing change is made, enabling you to get to an optimized tolerancing scheme more quickly.

SIGMUNDWORKS

• Five analysis types including; Worst Case, RSS (Root Sum Square), Modified RSS, Process Centering RSS, and Monte Carlo Simulations are possible
• Wide range of statistical distributions to emulate real-world
• Tolerance Optimizer (patented)
• Single-source documentation for tolerance stacks
• Automatic statistical, sensitivity, SPC, cost-savings, and impact report generation

INSPECTION

• First Article Inspection (FAI) and in-process inspection software that streamlines and automates the creation of ballooned inspection drawings and inspection reports (AS9102, PPAP, etc.).
• Enables users to leverage their legacy data regardless of whether they have SOLIDWORKS files, PDFs, or TIFFs.
• Each characteristic value can be entered manually, by using a digital caliper, or by importing coordinate measuring machine (CMM) results.

 

 

COLLABRATIVE WORKING IN A MULTI-USER ENVIRONMENT

Working in a multi-user environment is a challenging and error-prone task in an engineering sector. SOLIDWORKS has options and tools to perform tasks in a multi-user environment to a great extent in an easy manner. But it is important to setup a systematic multi-user environment.

Setting a Multi-user Environment:
The first step for a multi-user system is assigning defined tasks for each and every person & maintaining separate level for work flow.
1) Manager : Scheduling the task & Instructing the required changes
2) Supervisors / Leaders : Check the data and assigning & coordinating the work
3) Bottom level workers / Designers : Will perform the assigned work (Designing)

File Storage:
The most important task is to keep data files in a centralized server or system. It should contain only read-only access to avoid accidental changes in data files.

It is difficult to work together if the files are stored in the local hard drives, especially in SOLIDWORKS. Hence proper Implementation plan is required for seamless work-flow.

File Transfer:
Supervisors / Leaders should take care of the file transfer (in & out) and he is provided with administrative access to the data files.

Task Management:
Manager will schedule the task to the concern person and monitor the individual as well as team updates. Even simple mistakes can cause major problems.

SOLIDWORKS Options:
In SOLIDWORKS, following settings are available for collaborative working.

Tools --> Options --> System Options --> External Reference
Tools --> Options --> System Options --> Collaboration

These options control the file permissions within the team and help to work in the most recent or updated files by every users.

External Reference:
In this section, the first option will be “Open referenced documents with read-only access”. This option must be checked when two or more users are working in the same directory.

When this option is checked all referenced documents related to the assembly will be opened only with the read-only access by default.

Collaboration:

This entire section is dedicated to multi-user settings. Checking “Enable multi-user environment” option changes the work-flow from single user to multi-user by activating the other options of the collaboration section.









If “Add shortcut to menu items for multi-user environment” is checked, a shortcut is added to file menu list as Get Write Access / Make Read-only. This will help the multi-users to work on a single document (part or assembly) and make changes accordingly without any error.

“Check if files opened read-only have been modified by other users” option is to check the whether the opened read-only file have been modified or saved by other user for the interval specified by the current user. (Note: Lightweight components are not checked)

If the system detects a change, a tool-tip in the lower right of the graphics area points to an icon on the status bar. Click the icon to access the Reload dialog box. Reload dialog is used by the current user to reload or update the modifications done by the other users.

This section also contains options related to comments which can be useful for communicating the changes required and necessary details between the various users with time-stamp added to the comments in the multi-user environment.

 

Design Optimization Using SOLIDWORKS Configuration Publisher

Configuration Publisher provide a solution for design optimization. It is used to create
custom Property Manager for selecting configurations of parts and assemblies.
Configuration Publisher is placed in the property manager. Use the Property Manager
when adding a component to an assembly in SOLIDWORKS or when downloading a
model from 3D Content Central. To work with configuration Publisher, Microsoft Excel must
be installed on our system.

Configuration Publisher to control the ranges of features in the part to optimized
automatically in the design table. The Configuration Publisher dialog box, you can able to
create an interface for specifying configurations of parts and assemblies. It will use the
interface of SOLIDWORKS and 3DContentCentral.

1. Right click the top of the feature manager design tree and select the Configuration
Publisher as in Fig 1.

2. If you not create design table,The Configure Publisher to auto-create the design
table.click “Yes” In the confirm auto-create window as in Fig 2.
3. After click the “yes” tab to automatically open the dimension window,select the
dimensions to make the design table.

4. The Configuration Publisher box will then come up showing the different properties
(control box) that can be used to filter through the configurations. You set attributes for
each control in the available options vary depending on the control type and creation of
model variants.

It’s very useful to control over the Dimensions, Materials, Suppression states,etc. You
can drag the list box controls from the left in to middle to use, while the middle section the
edit tab is selected.
5. Selecting control boxes in the middle automatically open the attribute tab in the same
window right side. It allows to editing its properties on the attributes tab.

6. After editing is completed, click Apply for the changes to be reflect on to the model. Also
can share our mofidified model to web with the help of Upload to 3D Content Central.

7. When opening part file in assembly, configure component tab will open automatically
and set your input values.

Benefits:

• The configure Publisher which is used to Controlling part configurations, exploring design tables, creating a design table.
• This improves flexibility and lets you create more configurations.
• Create configurations and share them by automatically uploading your designs to 3D Content Central.
• It is used to reduce the time of the changes in the model designing.

 

SOLIDWORKS Electrical - Renumbering Unused Wires

Now, let’s take a look on Ref [Fig 1] section of wires. If one of these wires is deleted, redrawn and numbered. Previously it would not look for the lowest available mark and automatically take the highest existing mark and increment by one. In this case, that would be 9 Ref [Fig 3.1].

With SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2018, now you can control this default response not just for wires, can also for cables and components as well. In the Wire and component numbering dialog box, for Assign unused mark, select Wires and equipotentials, Cables, or Components Ref [Fig 2]. If you enable any of these options, on renumber the software will use the first available mark from 0. Here it will now use 6 Ref [Fig 3.2], the first unused mark after 0.

Fig 1

Fig 2

Fig 3.1 Before 2018 Enhancement

Fig 3.2 After 2018 Enhancement

 

SOLIDWORKS Design Checker

SOLIDWORKS Design Checker verifies design elements such as dimensioning standards, fonts, materials, and sketches to ensure that SOLIDWORKS documents meet company standards.

With SOLIDWORKS Design Checker you can: 

• Verify designs against company standards  
• Automatically correct nonconforming design and drafting issues
• Build Checks—Set up and save specific design and drafting checks
• Check specifically for fonts, dimensions, arrows, units, and other documentation details
• Compare your drawing to past results from reviews of other drawings

Options available to check: 

Check Active Document—Run the check to validate your document (drawing or model) against the requirement
Check against Existing File—Validate the active document against design checks created from existing files
Learn Checks Wizard—Retrieve design checks based on attributes from an existing SOLIDWORKS part, assembly, or drawing document

To enable Design Checker in SOLIDWORKS Interface:

1. Click Tools > Add-Ins.
2. Select SOLIDWORKS Design Checker, and then click OK.

Checking drawing sheet

To Check the Drawing Sheet using Design Checker
Click TOOLS > Design Checker > Check Active Document

In this example, Design Checker runs the check and Displays the correction in the active drawing sheet with respect to ISO Standard.

Design Checker lists the failed checks in order of the criticality assigned to each check. Expand each individual entry to list the Parameter Name, Actual Value, and Preferred Value(s)

Use Auto Correct All or Correct Selected to correct failed checks

• Click Correct Selected to correct only the selected failed checks from the tree, or click Auto Correct All, to correct all failed checks for which Design Checker supports auto-correction.
• The failed checks are corrected with the values set in each of the preferred auto correction values box.

Likewise you can check against the existing file, Document checks, Annotation checks, Dimension checks, Part document checks and Assembly document checks.

Benefits:

1. Design Checker can analyze and correct the problems automatically
2. The Check wizard can be saved as a report to be shared with others and the report is in HTML doc with colour coded to easily identify the past and present results.
3. It eliminates the manual errors and allows you to ensure the design is complete before releasing.

 

Stack up Analysis

SOLIDWORKS Stack up Analysis is a mathematical calculation used to measure a gap and
interference value between parts in an Assembly due to variation in its form, orientation and location.
Stack up Analysis is an analytical reasoning tool used to decide the allowable value of interference or
gap between parts from the key perspectives of its functional requirements in an assembly and its
manufacturability.

Why stack up is necessary

• To ensure all the part fits together in assembly
• To measure the Allowable value in form due to the variants in manufacturing
• To understand the worst case of the fit and form of all parts in an assembly
• For manufacturing the parts by assuring the allowable variation in size and location

SOLIDWORKS tolerance stack up analysis provides solution for finding the minimum and maximum

deviation and root sum squared (RSS) tolerance analysis.

Benefits:

• Well understanding of the functional requirement of the each part in an assembly
• Prevention of quality defects and improved product quality at its design stage
• Cost reduction due to the optimized tolerance
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Reduction in time to market