GrabCAD Workbench: First Experiments

May 3, 2013

(Updated with some modification. May 3, 2013 @9:42a)

In my yesterday post, I’ve been talking about PDM software, obvious value proposition behind PDM implementation, the fact a substantial amount of manufacturing companies are afraid of implementation PDM software as well as about how cloud software startup are trying to crack the idea of PDM and may be implement it differently. I wanted to have some hands on done and experiment with new apps on the cloud. Hardi Meybaum of GrabCAD was kind to grant me an access to Beta preview of GrabCAD Workbench.

After some confusion around multiple GrabCAD accounts (actually I have two accounts now), I succeeded to login and get to the project page (below). You can see project browser and area dedicated for file viewing. Nothing special, you can see it in many engineering software – CAD, viewers, etc.

I experimented with GrabCAD viewer. The “explode” feature is nice. So far, I get an access to SolidWorks assembly Hardi shared with me and was able to play with navigation between parts and sub assemblies.

Next thing – you can collaborate by sharing files with other users (which I did by sharing with my another gmail account – as a result a new GrabCAD account was created). The new user (account) provided me access to SolidWorks assembly with all parts and not only to a specific part I shared. This is probably a hint to GrabCAD engineers to think about security model, which will be absolutely must if you want to get your software closer to PDM functions of secured collaboration.

Another collaborative feature – pins and comments. I can put a pin in the viewer, put comments, screenshot and share it with other people. Nice collaborative feature. Also, you can put comments alongside with viewer file.

The last step in my experiments was to make a change or to upload pseudo “new version” of the assembly. The original file shared by Hardi was labeled as V1. So, I downloaded the file and change its name to something different in hope to have V2. I succeeded to upload the file, but didn’t get a preview (that was my fault of file renaming – see update below). Instead of preview I’ve got a nice feature allowing me to request a preview feature for this type of file. That was true for dwg and dwf files I tried to upload.

I’ve been working on viewer problem I faced. That was actually my fault by renaming file with wrong extension. I’ve been re-do it again and… voila, GrabCAD viewer captured it with nice message about queueing file for 3D viewing preparation, which ended with absolutely correct preview after 5-8 seconds processing.

Another interesting observation was “switch to old look” button, which gave me an access to traditional GrabCAD profile page with file access, properties and comments. Project was marked as private project – good sign of thinking about security. On the other side, it means GrabCAD workbench is a natural extension to GrabCAD website with the ability to access other projects as well.

What is my conclusion? GrabCAD Workbench is focusing on providing engineers with the tool to share CAD models and collaborate around CAD design. Because of cloud/hosted nature, it is easy to start. I found user experience nice and soft. I’ve been disappointed by absences of basic security implementation between parts and assemblies. I’m looking forward to talk to GrabCAD fellows and learn more. This is just my first impression… More to come.

Best, Oleg

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PDM: re-invent the wheel or innovate?

May 2, 2013

Engineers hate PDM. It is an axiom known to all people touching engineering and manufacturing software. Nobody gets up in the morning and looking for PDM software. Most of product development people are considering PDM as an evil that they need pay taxes to get right revision and don’t overwrite changes made by his colleagues. The value proposition of PDM is obvious. Navigate your browser to the reports made by Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity here. Here is a conclusion:

The conclusion from that report was a clear indication that Product Data Management (PDM) helps companies control control and secure product-related data, improve the ability to quickly find and reuse information, and share product knowledge with other departments. The report went further to point out that the companies indicated the results of better control, search, and collaboration are increased efficiency, improved quality, reduced cost, and the ability to bring products to market much faster. So it was easy to make a conclusion from that report that PDM helps companies improve the metrics that drive product profitability.

At the same time, the same Jim Brown in his online dispute with Chad Jackson agreed that PDM is overkill for small and medium design team. I posted about it few weeks ago in my post – PDM: Rightsize, Wrongsize, Overkill? The current status quo of PDM is that majority of engineering and manufacturing companies are not using PDM. The optimistic estimation of amount of CAD seats managed by PDM software is probably 15-20%.

Recently, I saw two startup companies decided to challenge the space of collaboration and PDM using cloud solutions – GrabCAD Workbench and Sunglass PDM.

GrabCAD – company known because of a website providing online storage for CAD models and place to promote your engineering skills via different challenges. GrabCAD is coming with Workbench – an online solution that provide a secured location to share CAD design and collaborate in teams. Josh Mings smacked a review of GrabCAD workbench here. The following passage can explain what Workbench does:

Workbench provides a secure location for sharing models. Inside this environment, people can upload files (3d, 2d, docs, etc.), comment on files and further collaborate on the project files. The 3D viewing interface provides additional tools to section, measure, explode and place ‘pins’ on the 3D object itself. The idea is to replace less secure methods of collaboration like email, FTP, Dropbox or other online share sites, providing a single point interaction for the model and the people.

GrabCAD is planning to come with 3 levels of collaborative solutions – Professional, Team and Enterprise. Pricing is not available yet, but the first (Professional) is available now for limited beta. I requested a try for me and waiting it to be available soon.

Sunglass.io is come to the market as a online collaborative site with 3D viewing solution. Currently Sunglass is introducing what they call “product data management to 3D distributed cloud platform”. GraphicSpeak Randall Newton put an interesting writeup about Sunglass PDM here. The following passage is my favorite:

Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “Hurray, I get to work in our PDM software today.” Most product designers and engineers consider the data management side of using CAD for product design to be drudgery. The more product data management can be unified with design data and the processes of team workflow, the less onerous keeping the data current will seem. Only time and customer feedback will tell us if Sunglass has created a winner.

At $20 per month per user, the price of Sunglass PDM is a factor of ten less expensive than most PDM products on the market. But they offer a much richer, more nuanced approach to data management. Ease of use will be the key to early success.

Target low end PDM white space

Both Sunglass and GrabCAD are using modern web development concepts together with cool user experience. GrabCAD is leveraging the community of more than 500K engineers using GrabCAD website to upload/download CAD files. Both companies are thinking how to fill the gap current PDM packages like TeamCenter, PDMLink or SolidWorks Enterprise PDM left untapped. From the examples I’ve seen, Sunglass and GrabCAD are proposing an alternative experience to traditional PDM. At the same time, most of traditional attributes left without changes.

What is my conclusion? User experience and S3 cloud storage. Community of engineers and dashboard with CAD plug-ins. Most of these attributes were introduced by old PDM tools in the past. Will it be enough to change the mind of conservative engineers about the role of PDM systems in their working processes? Everything new is actually well-forgotten old. The history of software has many things like this. Cost is a huge factor also. Only time will show if GrabCAD or Sunglass created a winner in new PDM space. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PDM: Rightsize, Wrongsize, Overkill?

April 23, 2013

I want to talk about PDM today. Product Data Management is not a new topic. Companies are using PDM many years. However, here is a deal – after many years of PDM deployment, customers are still trying to avoid to implement PDM. You may think it is mostly small and medium companies, but it is not true. I’ve seen many large companies that are using files and folders structure to manage their design files and revisions.

You may think PDM overkill? The issue of "sizing" of PDM and PLM isn’t new as well. Navigate to one of my previous posts about that – PLM: Rightsizing vs. Wrongsizing Debates. My conclusion there – size doesn’t matter. Two major aspects of PDM/PLM deployment – user experience and cost of ownership. PLM needs to focus on these sooner than later.

I wasn’t alone in the discussion about PDM for SMB and rightsizing. My industry friends Chad Jackson and Jim Brown captured this topic in their regular talk show – Tech4PD. Navigate to this link to read more – Is Product Data Management Overkill for Small Design Teams? If you have few minutes watch the video.

The discussion made me think about two significant issues where PDM brings overkill to engineers. First and most important – nobody likes data management. If you are in a big company and your boss will tell you to use PDM, you do. However, if you have even a chance not to use PDM, you won’t miss that opportunity. Design is cool, but data management is boring stuff. So, if it is an absolute need, then you agree to use it. However, here is where the second question is coming – cost! The issue of cost is coming faster than you expected. It is not a cheap job to deploy PDM even for small company with 5-10 users.

What is my conclusion? Last 15 years of PDM didn’t solve the problem of user experience and cost for PDM. We still see high cost of PDM systems and user experience coming from last century. Customers are demanding new type of tools even going beyond what mainstream PDMs (eg. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and Autodesk Vault) are capable to provide. The time for innovation is coming. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Social PLM: From File Explorer to Activity Streams

March 20, 2013

Social hype is getting down. I can say it about PLM industry too. We can see less “social startups” and less marketing hype about how next big social revolution will come and solve all existing problems in PLM technologies and systems. If you want to catch up with my previous thoughts about social PLM, I recommend you to read – How to prevent social PLM from marketing fluff? and Why Social PLM 1.0 Failed? My conclusion about the failure of Social PLM focused on the fact “social PLMs” missed the value of customer function and instead of that, focused on value proposition only. As a result of that, they missed usage and customer adoption – two factors that absolutely important to make a shift in PLM systems.

It is interesting to see how social systems are expanding their influence in other enterprise systems like CRM and ERP. One of them is Chatter for Salesforce.com. I’ve been reading TechCrunch article about Chatter update for mobile yesterday. Navigate to the following link to read it – The New Salesforce.com CRM Platform Is Chatter And It’s Made For Mobile. What was interesting is how Chatter is proliferating to become a universal way to get information out of CRM system and communicate with other people. It made me think about social system and shifting paradigm from File Explorer way to Social way. Here is an interesting passage I captured:

Chatter, the company’s activity stream service that it launched in 2010, now has the capability for a customer to access records, edit them and take action on an account, all from a mobile device. It essentially brings CRM to the customer’s mobile phone, iPad or tablet. The updated app is now available in the Apple App Store and Google Play. The app is a significant improvement over the Salesforce.com mobile app, and has one feature that is particularly noteworthy. Chatter Publisher overlays the Chatter activity stream. Its look is reminiscent of the tiles feature on Windows Mobile Phone and the overall Windows UI.

File Exporer Paradigm

For a long time, File Explorer was a main user experience paradigm we had on the computer. File explorer was with us from early days of Windows. File explorer (folder) paradigm expanded with the tools like Outlook and becomes even wider discovery paradigm for information – folders / hierarchical discovery.

File explorer paradigm expanded even into first versions of mobile devices. On the following picture you can see an early version of mobile device UI also presenting sort of file explorer.

PDM/PLM systems are inherited File Explorer paradigm in many ways. Most of successful PDM projects inherited File Explorer user experience because it was familiar and usable. Even today, many PLM UIs looks like File Explorer.

Social Paradigm

Social paradigm roots are taking us to early days of social networks. It started as a communication tools only (messaging, chatting) and expanded as a tools to share content among group of people (Twitter, Facebook, Google+). The function of content share became even more important when mobile came to place. The ability to embed content such as video, photos in communication expanded the reach and value of these tools. The information delivery model shifted from “folder, file and share” to “activity stream with embedded content” coming from social peers.

Enterprise vendors took the activity stream paradigm beyond the point of photo/video sharing. Social applications like Chatter and others are helping you to share information content coming from files and other enterprise application in the way similar to Facebook and Google+ are sharing photos and videos. The last Chatter update just proved it again.

What is my conclusion? Shifting paradigms. In my view, we see it just in front of our eyes. What was obvious and straightforward experience for PDM/PLM systems for the last decade will become a nonsense for the generation of 2010s customers. People want their working environment to have the same experience as games, internet and mobile devices today. I can see “activity streams” paradigm as an an interesting experience that will displace current enterprise systems UI in many places. I don’t expect enterprise systems to be like Facebook. However, I think social applications will play a significant role in the future of user experience. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Why versioning is complicated in PDM?

March 7, 2013

CAD-PDM-versioning.pngAfter 20+ years of CAD and PDM development, the issue of versioning is not solved. How about that? I hope, I’ve got your attention :) . Versions, revisions, changes, CAD models, drawings, parts… My experience is that as soon as it comes to engineers, revisions are getting messy. I touched it in my previous posts few times. If you want to refresh your memories navigate to Revisions in CAD, PLM, ERP: old problems or new challenges? A bit old (from 2010), but still very relevant post – Future CAD-PLM and Assembly Version Management. As a confirmation that topic is alive and not solved, I just read Minerva blog – Versioning, different meaning from one activity to another by Yoann Maingon. It is short a sweet, so take few minutes and have a read. Yoann is speaking about "difference in intentions". Here is the main point of the writeup:

…it is sometimes hard for people to have a common way to think about versioning. For the software development oriented person, versionning means saving or tagging. It means that the actual work has to be saved because we want to keep a state of the actual work. “I want to keep a state, I make a version, this version is stored”. In my view, related to main PLM concepts, versioning is creating something new. “I want to start a new work or I want to change a document, I version it. my new version is my working copy”.

If I speak about CAD/PLM software, here is the root of the problem. PDM systems create too many options in the mechanism of versions by implying "creation of something new" in place where it is absolutely unnecessarily. It was done by so many PDM systems in so many different ways with one common mistake – try to capture the intent of change and related dependent changes. The right answer to me is different. Versioning (and PDM is not different from software development and just Microsoft Word) is only about making "change" in the content (3D model, drawing, source code, assembly, configuration, etc). The role of PDM software is to capture the change and make it available for history tracking. You can ask me what about Parts, Revisions and other configuration management aspects? In my view, the answer on this question in the context of PDM/PLM is straightforward – use Parts, Part Numbers and Part Revisions (if needed).

What is my conclusion? Versioning is a mechanism that helps people to capture a change. Not the intent of change, but the change. It must be flexible and configurable, but at the end of the days, simple and reliable. I don’t want to miss my changes and I don’t want to run as a dog in order to find a right change. Most of PDM/PLM software created a complicated versioning systems. I don’t see much difference between PDM and software. With the amount of software code we have in products, these two options will come together sooner than later. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM adoption and CAD management valley of death

March 5, 2013

The issue of PLM adoption remains critical, in my view. Even if we can see more examples of PLM implementations, companies usually consider "PLM project" as something that needs to be taken with care, significant amount of planning and justification. So, I wanted to ask "why it happens"? The traditional answer mostly coming from PLM vendors and PLM consulting is leading to the complexity of business processes, the need of people to change and technological challenges related to implementation and customization of systems. Usually, vendors and consulting are working with CAD/IT managers that lead "engineering part" of the implementation. In parallel, PLM consulting often dream to work with C-level people in a company to define better alignment of PLM strategy.

I want to raise a question of balance between engineering IT / CAD managers and more strategic PLM business planning. Here is the thing – even if companies are succeeding in making strategic planning for future business and product planning development changes, CAD management is still can create too many complication on the way. CAD management is complicated, requires lengthy implementations, data import and… more important – change the way engineers and designers are working by introducing "data management". The last one is hated by everybody hates because of complexity.

In addition to complexity, CAD data management introduces an issue of compatibility between different CAD systems and PDM components. New trend to solve this problem is to use PDM system of the same CAD vendor. It simplifies CAD/PDM integration, but introduces the problem of multiple PDM/PLM system integration. CAD management (PDM) projects often positioned as an introductory step in PLM implementations often end up as a long and painful journey.

What is my conclusion? In my view, CAD management is a valley of death for many PLM implementations. Many PLM consulting and even some PLM vendors are trying to avoid and position PLM implementations "beyond CAD/PDM". It certainly gives some advantages, but (in my view) just hides the real problem of bad engineering data management. Engineering data from CAD is an important element of change management and many other PLM-related processes. As we move to more agile and efficient product development process management, to solve the problem of CAD data management and PDM becomes very important. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Will PLM take an advantage of DBaaS?

February 25, 2013

Bam! New acronym to learn today. Enterprise software already created tons of them for last 2 decades. However, I will ask to excuse me today and speak about DBaaS. I’m sure you’ve heard about IaaS, SaaS, PaaS… So, what is DBaaS and why I think it we need to discuss it in the context of PLM? Generally speaking DBaaS is a kind of "cloud database". Wikipedia classified cloud databases in the following article into Virtual machine images and Database as a services (DBaaS).

The major interesting in DBaaS can be called by a single name – scale. The requirements to infrastructure is growing. The ability to keep up with this growth often can go beyond IT capacity you company may have. So, DBaaS can give you an easy way to scale up with more/less predictable cost. Specifically, when speaking about global geographical scale. Most of manufacturing companies are working today globally with suppliers, manufacturing and design facilities across the globe. To support such type of globally scaled infrastructure, can be an additional reason to move towards DBaaS option.

Second reason – cost. Similar to all other XaaS services, DBaaS can provide cost benefits by virtualization of data layer. The exact numbers, of course, will depends per case and will not work for everybody. However, I believe, there are enough companies in the niche that will find DBaaS as a cost saving factors in their database architecture.

I want to mention few specific aspects of PDM and PLM development. To provide muti-site PDM deployment is one of the most crtitical requirements these days. Many relatively inexpensive PDM solutions are struggling with such type of multi-site deployment. By moving to DBaaS, they can solve the problem of distributed deployment. Another interesting aspect of PDM/PLM deployment is flexibility. The ability to instantiate a specific schema and configuration of database is much high with DBaaS compared to traditional database deployment.

Life is not without problems. DBaaS can be bring some challenges too. One of the most significant one is flexibility and configuration of DBaaS solutions compared to traditional databases. Therefore, DBaaS can be a challenge for existing PLM applications designed for traditional SQL database. Most of problems potentially can come from customization and ability to run specific database/server side scripts and procedures.

What is my conclusion? Cloud databases or DBaaS is an interesting infrastructure option for PDM/PLM developers and IT managers. It provide ease of administration and ability to scale. It can become an important element of your future PLM infrastructure for small and large companies. If you are developing new product today, pay attention how you can save by using DBaaS. If you are IT manager, check your existing or future PLM solution about their ability to run in DBaaS configuration. Important trend. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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What Cloud CAD-PDM Hybrid Means for PLM?

February 10, 2013

To predict future is tough. Not many people are trying to do so. Especially in tech. Companies are juggling with buzzwords, powerpoints and software. At the same time, analysts are trying to swim into the social information stream of provocations, facts and opinions. There are two terms in manufacturing and product development software that created most of confusion for the last decade – PDM and PLM. Navigate to the following link to find lots of publications about the topic. To my taste, the topic PDM vs. PLM became boring. I’d even suggest to add it to the list of boring PLM topics introduced by Jos Voskuil.

However, here is some news. My blogging buddy and analyst Chad Jackson is predicting PDM revolution. Navigate your browser to read about future PDM Revolution. Chad’s take on PDM revolution smells cloud and two new cloud design systems – Fusion 360 and SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual. This is my favorite passage that summarizes Chad’s crystal ball prediction of Hands-Free PDM:

If you take a look at Fusion 360 and Solidworks Mechanical Conceptual, at least in my exposure to it, there’s no step where you explicitly save your design or model. It’s done automatically in the background. When you close your model? The latest version will be there when you return. What happens when you create variations on a design that amounts to branching? Look at the model history and you’ll see those various branches tracked for you. So if you think about it, it is essentially hands-free. It does the brunt of the work automatically and practically invisibly for you.

Sounds like revolution to you? I think yes. However, here is a deal. It impose a significant threat to the future implementations of PLM. The mess of data in your local CAD-PDM now moves to the next step of the product development. Until now, companies implementing PDM took an advantages of their PLM solutions from the same vendors to manage BOM and ECO processes integrated with CAD data. Cloud CAD systems are not there yet and probably will not be there. Integration becomes an imperative to make hands-free PDM successful.

What is my conclusion? Cloud CAD and hands-free PDM is a signal to think about BOM management. In a different way. They key words are "single" and "integrated". Without that, we will enter into the messy world of structure mapping and synchronizations. If you are vendor, you need to think about openness and web APIs. If you are a potential customer of a cloud CAD/PDM hybrid, ask vendors how flexible and granular is "save" function that turns your work into stream of information stored in database. The ugly truth is that until now, file structure was doing integration job for you. Not any more. It is gone. Forever. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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BOM 101: Preliminary Product Structures and Part Numbers

February 1, 2013

I want to continue my BOM 101 thoughts and speak about working with Bill of Materials during early stages of product development. Engineers are using multiple sources of information to create an initial Bill of Materials. The initial BOM structure can come from CAD system, other BOMs developed earlier and also created from scratch. One of the important steps during this process is to assign Part Numbers as early as possible.

Part Numbers (PN) and development lifecycle process

Initial PN allocation plays a key role in overall product development process. From the moment we assign Part Numbers, the status of product development can be tracked by the Item Lifecycle mechanism. Newly created PN are obviously getting "development" status. However, measurement of time lapsed since PN assignment until Item actually entered into BOM and later until specification document becomes available will allow you to follow process of development on the very early stage.

Par Number and PLM/ERP integration

Part Number assignment requires some degree of system integration. The easiest way to get things done is to manage PN in your PLM systems. However, a reality is different. Very often, item master is managed by ERP system or another data management system. It can be also home grown database that historically keeps record of Item masters and allocate Part numbers. So, to integrate these systems will be extremely important to manage Items lifecycle in the company.

What is my conclusion? It is very important to have item lifecycle started at the very early stage of product development. Unfortunately, very often companies are postponing this step because of the integration complexity. PLM/ERP integration project is starting on the late phase of PDM/PLM implementation. Internal company politics are adding an additional level of complexity to this decision. It takes weeks or even monts to decide where to manage Item Masters. A significant portion of product cost is defined during early stage of the development. To have early BOM/PN visibility can optimize the process. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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BOM 101: 5 “Don’ts” for Bill of Materials Management

January 21, 2013

BOM is fascinating. After posting 3 Modern BOM Management Challenges a week ago, I keep getting back to Bill of Materials management topic. If you missed my previous BOM 101 posts, here are links to get up to speed: BOM 101- The four pillars of every BOM management solution, BOM 101- How to optimize Bil of Materials. You can also take a look on this post as well – Single BOM in 6 steps. Today, I’d like to take a bit different angle by stating my 5 top most important "don’ts" you need to follow when designing and implementing bill of materials solution in your company. These topics are not necessarily reflecting PLM system. You can face the same problems when implementing BOM solutions using Excel spreadsheets, homegrown DIY data management and large ERP solution.

1. Don’t use significant numbers for Part Numbers – Use Classification

The discussion about "significant" vs. "non-significant" part numbers is probably endless. If you are new in this discussion (or just came out of computer science college), a significant Part Number looks like this 60-44-FN400587-60-NM-40-DWG-CHI. The information in this number is coded and different groups of this number are representing different meaning. Is there something wrong here? No, it is absolutely fine to have significant part number. Even more, if you are still using Excel spreadsheets or legacy data management system, this is probably the only way you can do it. However, it is complicated and eventually will lead you to mistakes. These days, most of PLM systems will provide you with the easy way to use insignificant part numbers. One of the features of good data management system is advanced classification mechanism. Such type of mechanism will help you to define all meaningful terms and characteristics of your Parts, Assemblies and Materials.

2. Don’t use supplier’s part number – use your own Item Master number

When working with suppliers, you may decide to use supplier’s part numbering schema. Especially if you are small company, it sounds very reasonable and it can simplify the communication with suppliers. However, this is a wrong thing to do, in my view. Again, PDM / PLM system maintaining item master record with cross-reference mechanism between parts and supplier part numbers can easy solve this problem and simplify your life in the future. What will happen with your system and processes if supplier will decide to change their number schema one day? it will be probably a very complicated day for you. So, use your own item master numbering schema and don’t rely on suppliers.

3. Don’t use the same ID for Part Numbers and Drawing Numbers

This is another question often asked during implementations. To use the same number for items and for drawings as well as process sheets, specification documents, etc. Initially sounds like something that could be simple enough to support and manage, can potentially lead to significant complexity and limitation in managing of change processes. The same drawing can be used for different part numbers. At the same time, changes of part numbers related to materials, stock, etc. won’t require drawing changes. Keep separate numbers and manage relationships between them is a good data management practice to follow.

4. Don’t be afraid to use extra part numbers

Identification is a very important mechanism. Sometimes, the assembly process is quite complicated and requires some temporarily pre assembled elements of the equipment to be maintained separately. In addition, you might have materials such as service parts, replacements, process result chemicals, etc. Bottom line – you don’t want materials in your bill to fly without identification. Everything needs to be included into the bill. Today’s data management systems are powerful enough to manage "extra Part Numbers" to identify everything you need in your bill.

5. Don’t put Bill of Materials on the drawings

Another topic coming from historical usage of paper drawing. In the past, it was the only way to share information. Obvious decision back that days was to put Bill of Materials on the drawing list. In modern digital life, such practice can create a lot of complications and additional procedures (such as updates of drawing when only part list will be changed). The good practice today is to keep cross reference links between drawings and bill of materials. It will allow you to manage your changes process efficiently and optimize your and your company time.

What is my conclusion? Control and efficiency. These are two important words to remember when you deal with Parts, BOMs and Documents. Many processes in this space were developed in the past and can trail lots of complexity if you not update them to "digital era". To streamline processes and make change management simple are important goals to following when creating the foundation of your BOM management solutions. Just my thoughts. I’m sure missed some issues and useful tips. Speak your mind and share your experience….

Best, Oleg

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