One of the big benefits of using a PDM system is the ability to search for previous designs and reuse them. For example, you created a large holding tank three years ago that was 6' tall by 24" in diameter, and a new customer is looking to purchase a similar holding tank that is 5' tall and 36" in diameter. Would you start to design the tank from a blank sheet, or would you want to find the previous design and just modify the needed dimensions? If you are using
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM it is as simple as searching for some key words like tank and 6'. Because Enterprise PDM is run on a Microsoft SQL database, you can search tens of thousands of documents in just a few seconds.
Now that you have found your original design, it is time to make use of it and avoid reinventing the wheel; or cylinder, as it were. Because of SolidWorks' flexibility there are several ways in which you can copy this assembly.
- Microsoft Windows Explorer, Copy and Paste - Copy and Paste all of the files from the assembly to another folder and rename them manually. Without Enterprise PDM managing this process, none of the links within the Assembly to the SolidWorks part files would update. Your detail drawings will still point to the original files and cause a very frustrating and time consuming cleanup process to manually fix these problems.
- Using SolidWorks and the Save As function - Open the assembly in SolidWorks and use the Save-As command. This will allow you to copy the top level assembly, all of the parts, and even rename by adding a prefix. (You don't get any of the detail drawings when doing this. Manually copying the drawings will not point them to the new files, you will have to manually re-attach each drawing to its new part.)
- Pack-n-Go to copy - If you use Pack and Go you can copy all of the files to another location (or zip file), and you can include drawings. You can add a prefix or suffix to the file names to make them unique. You can even exclude some of the items and still reference the original parts that may not change.
- Use "Copy Tree" within the Enterprise PDM interface - With Enterprise PDM you can right-click on the main assembly in File Explorer and select Copy Tree from the menu. This will bring up the dialog window shown below.
With Copy Tree you have the ability to include drawings. You can even exclude some of the items and still reference the original parts that may not change. You can add a prefix or suffix to the file names to make them unique, or you can have Enterprise PDM rename all of the copied files and drawings with a serialized part number. With Enterprise PDM an assembly knows what version of each part that it references, and you can specify whether to use the latest version or the "as reference" version. You can even have Enterprise check-in the files for you.
Even if you just want to copy a single part and its detail drawing, Copy Tree is still your best option because it will copy the part and its drawing, re-attach the drawing to the new part file, and name each file using the next available part number. After changing a few dimensions on the part you're all done and ready for the next task.
Conclusion
Re-Using design data for similar new projects is just one of the many time saving benefits to using SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. Revision Control, Collaborative Tools, Workflow, Auditing and Remote Access are some other popular reasons that many SolidWorks Engineering Teams have made the investment in PDM. Compounding time saving features across every team member, every day and you can begin to realize tangible Return on Investment y reducing duplicated efforts and gaining higher productivity. Learn more about Design Reuse with this White Paper from SolidWorks.