proe repeat region vs winchill bom

[ClaudiuCraciun]

Our company started to implement windchill.

For many years the bom was creates using a repeat region indrawing and show the balloons related to this region.In future apears that bom will be created from windchill but there is no solution tor the bom and baloons in drawing that need to match with windchill bom. anybody had this problem?

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[huggre]

As of today, i dont think PTC has any good solution for this problem.

I have heard mentions about workarounds but non that really solves to problem in the long run.

Im quite supprised that this topic is not discussed more in this forum.

How do all you other windchill users keep the drawing balloons and windchill BOM item id's in check?

[Patriot_1776]

The windchill BOM may well be simply "WT Parts", which are not real parts. I would NEVER use a BOM out of windchill. You can export a text file from a dwg BOM, which will always be more correct.

[ClaudiuCraciun]

the issue is that we have now is that CAD structure doesn't match with ERP structure. Sometime we have simplified models (a part that simulate an entire assembly) or CAD help assemblies that were done by designer to help them in design and for that the structure doesn't match with the structure in SAP.

For example in ProE I have a part that simulat an assembly aaaa. This material in SAP contain maybe 10 subitems. We are not sending to SAP the subitems only the material aaaa and SAP automatically knows the subitems.

What we want to have is Windchill connected to SAP. Everithing changed in Proe will be sent back to SAP but appears that we are goind to use a different approach for the BOM table (this one doesn't match with Windchill one.

I'm still learning about windchill but what it supposed to be the Ideal solution is having an application that read the WT parts from windchill, generate a table in drawing and add the baloons related to WT pats on cad models that are linked with these WT parts.

[Patriot_1776]

WT parts are garbage, I wouldn't use them for anything. with the actual Pro/E assembly, you can physically see if you have the right number of fasteners, etc., whereas with the WT parts it's the same as using the ERP or SAP software, which means you're blind. I'm trying to institute the change here where the Pro/E BOM output from the drawing is input into our ERP system to prevent these mistakes.

I see absolutely no need for WT parts unless you intend to NEVER have CAD models and are simply using Windchill as the proverbial "sharp stick" to poke yourself in the eye with repeatedly......

[EdSiekman]

I have to disagree. WTparts are Windchill objects that are far more intelligent than the CAD files in Windchill. Without WTParts you will never be able to attach associative data such as Design history Word docs or Excel spread sheets or Vendor PDF spec sheets etc... to CAD data. There is no way to tie other data that is specific to revisions without WTParts. In other words your database is just one big bucket of CAD files, Word docs, PDF's, Excel etc... without the usage of WTParts. WtParts allow associatively and organization of data. without WTParts you are not capable of using the the Product structure explorer. Would be like having a model in AutoCAD and the drawing in Proe and associative docs in Word, Excel, etc... all on a shared drive. The only way I would agree with Patriot_1776 is if you are simply using Windchill for vaulting your CAD data and Revisions. That's a lot $$ for that minimal amount of usage. By the way I would fully trust a bom out of Windchill just that sometime's not as easy to get into Excel but you can easily get many flavors of a BOM in Windchill.

[Patriot_1776]

Windchill is not validated, we cannot use it for anything BUT CAD files. We have validated software we must use for other stuff like reports and change orders. As far as price, not only do I agree W/C is far too expensive, but is also the worst software I've ever had to use. The GUI is about as unfriendly as you could possibly intentionally make it, and the performance is terrible, with poor performance(sssslllllooooooooowwwww), the software constantly crashing, and lost date. My users HATE it, especially the ones coming from Solidworks. I'd dump it except that decision is above my head. I want my Intralink back!!!!!!

And, I'm not so sure you cannot associate Word files and such to the CAD Documents. I'll look into that further......

[dschenken]

You are viewing Windchill (PDMLink??) as an application, which it isn't. It is a platform that supports almost any activity you can imagine.

It's a continuum. Notepad is on the application end, the Internet is entirely platform. I place Windchill much closer to Internet than to Notepad. The non-Windchill Intralink is more of an application. It's software to use, not build a company operation on.

Depending on how skillful one is Windchill can be anything from entirely useless to practically magic.

[Patriot_1776]

I've worked at 3 different companies that have been forced to switch to it by PTC's strategy of making sure the later versions of Pro/E and Intralink are not compatible. The software was a total nightmare at all 3 different companies, some more or less than others. Even where it was at it's best, it was still far inferior to Intralink. All of the users I've ever met over almost the lat 6 years have absolutely hated it. And, from the comments I've seen here and on other forums, that's what they're saying as well. I've seen nothing but "black magic".

For the record, I'll state that running a vaulting system over the LEAST stable network in the world, and depending on Java and every other browser or other piece of software to work correctly is nothing but a recipe for disaster, as it has proved to be in my experience.

I want my Intralink back!

[dschenken]

I have two views for information capture.

I think of Windchill and Sharepoint as places documents go for burial in well marked graves, and the information they contain is buried with them. There can be all the Search and Indexing capacity in the world and it doesn't help much. For auditting and legal discovery purposes, sure, shovel the information into holes and smooth dirt over. For excruciating access control and work-flow, absolutely.

What is missing is the narrative that describes where the information came from, what parts of it are valuable, why some of it was rejected, and so on. What is missing is the speed.

Which brings me to the other view. That of information separated from documents, exposed and linked in ways that the users of the information see fit. And with the information and those links, descriptions of how the users related to the information. With the minimum access controls to keep the information under some control, the idealized Wiki (Hawaiian for quick, rhymes with Tiki) where each topic is it's own page, editting is entirely without hoops, and links to future places are not only allowed, but accepted, if not encouraged.

Having used the two extensively, I can say that Windchill/PDMLink will mostly avoid highly skilled users stepping on each other's work; that a Wiki can make even low-skilled users into useful contributors and consumers of information. Driving PDM software is like maneuvering a battleship in a bathtub; the Wiki is the jetpack I was promised and finally got.

[GabrielZaha]

I think, what he is trying to say is that in Windchill you may have WTParts that doesn't have a CAD file/model associated. It is very similar with the example you described with the aaaa assembly.

If I remember correctly SAP will always read the Windchill BOM.

In my opinion working with Windchill BOM is perfectly acceptable as long as the differences between the two BOM's are captured and validated. The part approval process should include a BOM validation step.

[EdSiekman]

When working out of a database the rules definitely change. and I agree that Windchill is not the most user friendly and certainly not the PDM of my choice. It is kind of cryptic to me and far to manual compared to our prior DB Teamcenter. Teamcenter, in my opinion is far superior to Windchill but you have to live and work with what you are given, so we try to ustilize and work with the tools that we deem necessary for our company to get the job done. I did not intend to step on any ones toes I was just trying to explain how we use the WTParts because we do attach documents to our revisions. We have design history docs, MFG specs, RoHS cert's and more that we want to live with a specific revision and without the implementation of WTParts one is unable to accomplish this. And I do also believe, IMO, that the Windchill BOM's are useful. Thanks and you all have a great day!