Drawing distribution and release process using Windchill

[Anand]

Dear Windchill experts, I am trying to setup a drawing distribution and release process through Windchill, can anyone share some best practices on this topic if you have implemented the same in your company ?

Thanks,

Athmanand

[cc-2]

Hi

I have done a few things but it depends on many things.

For me in the past the required was so.  Non Windchill users needed to be informed that certain documents (Office or CAD) were released. I have used my Windchill Login and created Subscription. I have then set up rules in my Email to automatically forward those notification emails . I had ensured they could easily be identified.

We also used a third party software which automatically created pdf of those freshly released documents outside of Windchill in a share folder.

No one had a direct access to the share folder and a html interface was designed to access "manually" the document by entering the document number.

The email notification also contained a link to the pdf.

Consequence:  Non Windchill users were notified within seconds that a new document was released and they could click on the link of the email to open the pdf directly.

There was a drawback, sometimes they received notification for documents having no interest to them but this was quite rare.

Advantage. Investment of 10kUSD for the Third Party software allowed as many users as wanted to be informed and read the released documents

Hope this helps

[DonSenchuk]

Look into the Change Management workflows (Change Notice/Change Activity) for your release process. I've implemented it and have been very happy with the results. It was fairly easy to tailor to our process once I got the hang of manipulating the workflow templates.

[Anand]

Dear Chris,

Thanks a lot for your inputs.... can you give me few details on the third party software which you were mentioning ?

Thanks,

[Anand]

Dear Don,

Thanks for your comment, We are also looking to adopt the change management workflows,

When you are releasing a drawing in Windchill, how do you capture the approver and reviewer informations on your drawing ?

Thanks,

Athmanand

[cc-2]

Hi Don,

I know it is an old practice to have the Created By, Approved By and Reviewed By (as well as the date) but to me this should not be required.

It can be complex to put this in place. I had a similar requirement in the past in my company. It took me a long time to convince people it was not required as they should check PDMLink if they need to know.

From production standpoint. It should really no matter who created it, who approved it etc... they should only be concerned with insuring that what they get is what they need, ie an approved drawing. Who approves it is not relevant to them.

For audit purposes, well everything is in Windchill,

The other requirement I had was that some sites were used to list the changes on the 2 DRW. Here again, it is a duplication of information as it exists in Windchill (should exist if Windchill is used correctly).   I am must say that while I thought I have won that battle (no history table on the drawing) after about 3 years a new manager came and told the designer to do include the version history table.  I could not stop them as there is no authorisation to stop that but I really believe it is a waste of time.  His call after all......

Nonetheless, this does not answer your original question and I hope someone will tell you how to do it. But this can be tricky because what do you actually release, the drawing the model, the wtpart ?........

[DonSenchuk]

That wasn't responding to me, but still useful information.

[DonSenchuk]

Generally speaking, the reviewer and approver are a known element prior to doing any drawing work. We have a single approver in the 'audit' role and that person doesn't change, so that bit is easy. When a new project is conceived, the reviewer is chosen at that time. Because of this, we manually enter each name into the drawing title block.

I'm honestly not sure there is an easy way to automate what you're describing.

[cc-2]

What about creating a soft attribute so the user has to select the value (name of someone from the list) before submitting to review.

The attribute just need to be called out onto the drawing. ?  The attribute can either be for the model or the drawing...

[DonSenchuk]

I'm not sure whether that's possible or not. Like I said, we don't have a use-case for this because all our reviewers/auditors are known ahead of time.

[Anand]

Dear Chris,

Can you give some more details on creating a soft attribute and calling that information onto the drawing ?

Are you speaking in context of layout files ??

Thanks,

Athmanand

[cc-2]

Dear Athmanand

I was talking about drw files. But in theory it should not be that different with layout files

For the drawing, create a soft attribute for EPMDocument,  when you create the drawing in ProE, create the parameter which will be matched during checking in.

On the drawing call the parameter &PARAMETER:D    : D  because if it is a drawing.

Best regards