How to share EPDM product data with outside partners?

[XIAOYUNLIU]

I am trying to understand the best practices for sharing product data within WC with companies/partners/suppliers/co-developers outside our company. At present, the only method I can find is to 'pack' the some or all of product data (meta data, assembly & parts, drawings, and all other relevant data) and send it to the recipient. And when there is an update to the data that has been shared, then do this all over again.

On the recipient's side, they have to 'unpack' the data and load it into their system. We have a few scenarios here:
1. The recipient has WC+Creo - they may be able to take the data 'as is' with very little massaging to get into their system.

2. The recipient has PDM/PLM/CAD from another vendor - they have to find a way to "import" the data into their system, and this may lead to data being neither imported into their PLM system or their CAD system.
3. The recipient has only CAD system - they have to grab the CAD data out of the 'pack' and use it, perhaps after translating it into their native CAD system, if they arent using Creo.

And all of them have to this over again the moment something changes at the sending end to either the metadata or the CAD data.

I would like to know if the user community has evolved a set of best practices for each scenario. I would appreciate if people can share their thoughts on how they would deal with this situation in their company.

[pwilliams-3]

You should take a look at Windchill Packages.  You can export 2 types.  1 of them is importable into another Windchill system.

[fklink]

My best proposal is to grant access either to your products or at least to a project to your suppliers.

We do it with some of them that we know we can rely on.

The ultimate solution would be to enable the DRM from Windchill an not only from Creo. With this solution in place, you would have 100% control over your documents.

[ahamblett]

What is DRM?

[ScottMorris]

Has anyone worked with a third party DRM solution for Windchill? Maybe Vera? 

https://www.vera.com/press-release/vera-partners-with-autodesk-ptc/

Windchill packages are nice, but the data is completely open and totally at risk when shared externally. 

[adam80]

HI,

If I understand it correctly, the Supplier collaboration foundation seems to require TC at both ends. (Please correct me if I am wrong). Unfortunately, this idea wont work for the scenarios I have mentioned. Out of every 10 suppliers/partners we have, 8 use other systems than TC+NX. I did check out the Briefcase Browser, and for a one-off transaction, it works nicely. Again, if the receiver is also on TC+NX, it works very well, but for other partners, it does not. And trying to automate packing & sending the data every time there is a change in the metadata and/or CAD data is just too **bleep** difficult. Even if we were doing this for just 10 products with 2 changes a month per product, with 4 different partners, this is a big undertaking. We need a continuous and automatic way for our partners to get the changed data from us so they can focus on doing their work, instead of keeping the data insync with us. But I do appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thanks

[Makayla283]

EPDM has also a web server and web clients. These tools can be used to sharing your data with partners mypremiercreditcard.

[apkdodo2]

I am trying to understand the best practices for sharing product data within EPDM with companies/partners/suppliers/co-developers outside our company. At present, the only method I can find is to 'pack' the some or all of product data (meta data, assembly & parts, drawings, and all other relevant data) and send it to the recipient. And when there is an update to the data that has been shared, then do this all over again. On the recipient's side, they have to 'unpack' the data and load it into their system. We have a few scenarios here: 1. The recipient has EPDM+SolidWorks - they may be able to take the data 'as is' with very little massaging to get into their system.2. The recipient has PDM/PLM/CAD from another vendor - they have to find a way to "import" the data into their system, and this may lead to data being neither imported into their PLM system or their CAD system. 3. The recipient has only CAD system - they have to grab the CAD data out of the 'pack' and use it, perhaps after translating it into their native CAD system, if they arent using SolidWorks. And all of them have to this over again the moment something changes at the sending end to either the metadata or the CAD data. I would like to know if the user community has evolved a set of best practices for each scenario. I would appreciate if people can share their thoughts on how they would deal with this situation in their company.

Thanks!