[Best Practice] Is there a need to Auto Promote Older Versions of an CAD object to Obsolete ?

[Loic_Badoual]

Dear community,

In my compagny, we have the rule to Auto Promote Older Versions of an CAD object to Obsolete.

This practice is to ensure that purchase and production departments are using the most recent, approved version of drawings when we launch the procurement of parts and the fabrication order.

However, this create problems if changes are made for future products and production ends up with plans marked as obsolete. Product Relevant documents are shared on projects folders and the State of the objects follow the life cycle of the product context.

What is your practice ? Do you Promote Older Versions of an CAD object to Obsolete ? Do you have maybe 

an intermediate status like "Superseded" ?

Additionnal informations : At that time, we don't use the mBOM transformation netheir part instance but this is planned. Could this help ?

[HelesicPetr]

Hi @Loic_Badoual 

There are many cons/pros why to do so or not.

My experience is if you use just latest configuration, you don't need to obsolete the older revisions 

It is additional work if you believe the latest versions. 

Also there are some needs to product older version of product and then the obsolete versions could confuse someone. 

 I can continue to explain additional use cases that can case many troubles with using this model and also not using this model. 

Everything depends on the company needs and processes.  Keep in mind that each company is unique and the universal solution does not work for everyone.. 

PetrH

[Hari_Vara]

Hi,

If we go by the very definition of a part and revision, then previous Revisions should be able to co exist with newer Revisions of that part in the Physical World -- "Form Fit Function" stuff.

I genuinely think that you will have lot of problems with your production "bin" are going to be Revision specific, meaning old and new part revisions cannot be stored and used in the same Production bin.

The best practice is to do a proper "Disposition" of the physical parts during the Change Implementation. Decisions like what to do with old revisions should be made. 

If FFF are no longer same between outgoing Revision and Incoming Revision of the part, then you should use a new part number and have Windchill mark them as "Replaced by"  (Supersede means it applies to all the places where the part is used).

I think that a bit of Configuration Management will help here.

From Windchill perspective, we do an "Obsolete" only when you have a "Superseding" part, in this case, its basically not the same part with Revision, but a new part number.

Your company's legacy practices may have to thought with CM perspective, is my thinking.

Technically you can customize Windchill the way you want , but is it the best practice? 

Best Regards

Hari