Looking for user guide on structuring wtparts and EPMdocuments

[lgrant]

Hi PTC Community,

I am not a CAD person and we don't have someone who is but we are in the process of rolling out WC11 with wtparts!

I am trying to scrape together a guidance document for the CAD users on how wtparts are structured to CAD items.

The back story is we are pulling part data from Oracle and creating wtparts but our CAD library is a mess. The drawings and models just use names and not the part number. So I need something that shows the CAD folks how to structure the wtparts with the CAD items.

[MikeLockwood]

Overall recommendation is go slow...   Lots of options and it takes a while to really understand them enough to make decisions as a company how you want to utilize Windchill.

Create a Product and/or Library in your production Windchill system specifically for test data and carefully populate it with one each of all possible variations (e.g. start with a simple CAD Part with a drawing, and related WTPart.  Move on to family tables, fixtures & tools, assemblies with options, parts that are shown in different positions and have different models (e.g. open/closed box flaps), etc., etc.  Come back to those example test data sets each time there is a discussion how to handle.  If you have ECAD and/or software, this expands greatly.

Come up with a company document with example data sets for each situation.  Has to cover the type of CAD<>WTPart relationships especially (Image, Owner, Contributing Image, etc.).

[lgrant]

On basics steps, should the CAD Part be checked out and then use Auto Associated to add the existing Part?

Then what Association Type should we use? (Contributing, Image, Contributing Content, Content)

[MikeLockwood]

Good start of the needed document.

in general, yet, check out CAD in order to create & associate Parts and build structure.

Once you get some done manually, can load from file (Windchill shell comment, read in a file).  At previous company we did 60,000 WTParts this way at the beginning - but only after creating about 1000 thru workspace, with all designers experiencing it.

If you're just starting to use Windchill (not clear above), address CAD first fully, then add WTPart confusion.  Also have the choice of completely building your existing BOM's in Windchill from Oracle ERP data, then associating them one component / assembly at a time, addressing any conflicts, issues, etc.  If this is done, as soon as they are loaded into Windchill, the Windchill parts / structures have to become the master that ERP follows - heavy on people / process / training.

[lgrant]

We are creating Part Structure with wtdocuments as the relationship is already defined in Oracle. The problem we have is finding the correct CAD drawing/CAD Part for each wtpart.

Assuming that goes well!!

I still need to show a CAD users how to find and structure parts.