Managing fasteners in Windchill
Windchill pro's I need your help....
All of our fasteners are 'rubber band' parts that are unique to each job that we do. Now that we have switched to Windchill and WTParts, I am being asked to update the fasteners, that reside within in our new job template models, from the unique rubber band type fasteners to now use library parts. Our template models are heavily programed so I will need some way to still have the fasteners build themselves based on model parameters (bolt type, bolt material, bolt length, and so on).
What alternatives are there to family tables if I want to our models to programmatically select the correct fasteners from the library?
We already have the fastener information in excel files so I could pretty easily make family tables but from what I have read about them I get the feeling that there may be a better way. If I can't find a better way to do it, my fall back plan is to create family tables then use them in an "bolt" assembly that uses the lookup_inst function to swap out the instances.
What would be amazing, is if there where some lookup tool that I could just use to search through the Windchill library by property to pull in the correct part number (file name) and then just use that to drive the parameter in Pro/Program that pulls in the appropriate part: ADD COMPONENT (parameter).
And what about using a user program or some other external tool to look up file names?
What do you think?