Windchill notes for replacing drawing notes

[zmiller]

Hello,

I'm curious if anyone is using, or considering using the notes that can be created within Windchill and added to the EBOM.  My company is starting to look into this as a replacement for notes that are put on the drawing.  This is especially interesting for the Model Based Definition (MBD) approach as it would allow us to finally eliminate the 2D drawing that is currently used just for notes.

If anyone is doing, or considering doing, this I would be interested in your thoughts.  Perhaps we could have a more in depth discussion too.

Thanks!

[pkgna]

HI Zach,

We are in process of getting into MBD world and we have issue in creating the combined view pdf created so that we can share to our suppliers and shop floor guys.  Internally we can manage with Creo View. But shop floor and external suppliers will be hit as they don't have access to our windchill system

So for us combined view pdf is a must.Is there anything you have done on this part ?

Best Regards

Prajeesh Kumar

[zmiller]

@pkgna 

Thanks for bringing this up in the TC meeting today and then posting here too.  So far we are taking a slightly different approach but the problem to be solved is the same.  The problem is that people still need to see the notes in a viewable (PDF, CreoView, etc...).  So far we only have this functioning for non-MBD designs, when a design is released, and all the triggers are tripped in our release process, a cover sheet is created that contains the BOM table (from the WT part 'structure' tab) and the notes associated with the WT part.  This cover sheet is then appended to the PDF of the drawing.  Our vision for MBD designs is that the 'cover sheet' containing the BOM and notes would be part of a data package provided on demand, the data package would also contain links to the BOM and notes for those internal users who wouldn't need a document and could go right to the data source.  That is the ultimate goal for MBD, but we do also have an interim vision where the 'cover sheet' containing the BOM and notes would be appended to the 3D PDF.  Neither of those MBD solutions would really address the need to see the notes in CreoView, we haven't really given too much thought to CreoView because our document of record for MBD is the 3D PDF and because of that we don't see a huge usage of CreoView.  Second we have kind of taken the view that if someone has access to the CreoView viewable then they would also have access to WT part which would get them the BOM and notes.  But admittedly that's kind of ignoring the issue for CreoView.

Hopefully that makes some sense.  If I can present on this in the next MBD/CAD TC meeting I think it will make more sense when you see it.

[pkgna]

Hi Zack,

Thanks for the reply and details. I can understood the case where we have 2d drawings and the BoM Table and Notes are attached as coversheet. 

Are you guys using the Adobe experience manager + coversheet functionality from OOTB PTC or do you have a custom / any other OEM Solution

As far as I know OOTB CAD Worker doesn't support creation of 3D PDF. 

Do you use any other thir party solutions from Theorem / Anark to do this ?

Also I know we can create combined views of pdf using print on po functionality in Creo or Creo View. But it is not supported by ptc CAD worker.

During the transition period , it is a requirement for our suppliers / shop floor guys in Manufacturing area

I am looking forward your presentation in the next working group meeting

Best Regards

Prajeesh Kumar 

[zmiller]

Hi Prajeesh,

I'll try to answer your questions, some of them I don't know many details on as I wasn't involved directly with the development of our solution, I'm more involved on the user end of things. 

I'm not sure exactly how we are creating and appending the cover sheet, I believe it is using some OOTB functionality and also some custom functionalities, we did also work with a vendor to  bring it all together.

Your correct the OOTB CAD workers don't support 3D PDF creation.  We are using Anark to create 3D PDFs.  I know Anark has the ability to merge various documents into a single PDF, so for our proposed interim solution for MBD we should be able append the cover sheet to the 3D PDF using Anark.

Thanks,

Zach 

[pkgna]

Hi Zach,

Thanks for the mail. Yes for coversheet, PTC OOTB supports with Adobe Experience Manager

So you are using ANARK for 3D PDF. 

We evaluated the ANARK. We are expecting PTC to provide us to create the following through CAD Worker

1. 3D PDF 

2. Single pdf for all combined views

Basically the standalone Creo supports this and we are wondering why PTC is not enabling this in CAD Worker as it must be simple for them. 

Anyway we publsih it for representation and along with that they can support these additional formats 

Best Regards

Prajeesh Kumar

[EricKrieg]

Hi,

As I mentioned during the call, Aerojet Rocketdyne has a 3rd party note application that is embedded within Windchill.  The tool was developed by Birlasoft (formerly KPIT, formerly Icubed) with oversight from PTC to develop a tool that most utilized Windchill objects, architecture and would be well supported in the future.  It's a very comprehensive solution compared with the OOTB Windchill notes that we found didn't really facilitate the standardization and usage of notes across our company in a very digital enterprise type of framework.

I'm attaching content I created for previous PTC User conferences that were approved for release from our communications department. The first is a single slide from our 2015 Windchill deployment project and the second is the 2014 sales/PR pitch from KPIT that includes details of our implementation. This fully supports our drawing centric programs with a separate auto generated PDF from the drawing, and the same approach auto generates this PDF with our MBD applications.  The data is embedded in the CAD (drawing or model) and is carried over the WTPart via either owner or content links. PDF generated via PTC OOTB representation publishing.

KPIT was selling this product but had difficulty with the sales model as they weren't really set up to do that business end of it well.  They may still provide as a service, I don't know.

I can explain further or provide a mini demo at some point, if this will help.  Eric

[zmiller]

Hi Eric,

Thanks so much for providing this information.  I had captured some notes from what you said during the TC meeting but they weren't very good, this is much better.  This very closely aligns with what we are doing and trying to do.  I want to share the information with my management but I think we will be interested in learning more.

Thanks,

Zach