Reduce-Reuse-Recycle… Data?

Written by Paul Gimbel

I’ve sold and demo’ed it all. SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER, SDRC, Autodesk, you name it. And one of the biggest selling points that we had for parametrics was the argument for data reuse. “Why would you spend all day doing File, Save As when you can build once and use as many times as you want?” Besides, its popular to recycle these days – even if you’re just recycling data. Configurations, part families, family tables, xrefs, component instances, call them what you like. But are centralized part libraries the answer to everyone’s problems?

It turns out that the answer is not always yes. Design Automation focuses on letting your intellectual property work for you, creating new variants of your designs at the push of a few buttons. But what if you’ve made the product before? Do you really want to create it all over again? As always, the answer is “it depends.” What does it depend on? When would you want to recreate the same part? Why is he asking so many questions?

Design Automation (DA) systems will generally create their models, then dump them and run away. What you do with those models afterwards is completely up to you. In many instances, the models are further modified to add features that are not in the automation. After all, 100% automation is generally unachievable and rarely cost effective. But that’s a subject for another blog.

So the question of reuse can be inhibited by the fact that you don’t always know what modifications are made after the DA system has relinquished control. Sometimes you may want those changes included (if they’re for manufacturability, for example), and sometimes you won’t (if they’re for a one-off customization).

Convenience is often the other argument. Some folks utilize Design Automation to create a complete documentation set. No pack and go, no finding of references, the DA system creates everything in one nice, neat folder. Back it up to a CD and stick the CD in the job folder – perfect “As Built” every time. Data reuse is convenient because you don’t need to spend the time recreating the models. Well if your server is creating the models, who cares? Servers don’t get bored with creating the same models over and over and disk space is cheap.

PLM does a wonderful job of helping with the implementation of reuse and most DA systems will allow you to reuse files. And if you want to leverage that, wonderful. It does have its advantages with revisioning, updating of older models when standard components change, and tracking of Where Used information. I’m certainly not arguing against that. But don’t take data reuse as a mandate to be forced upon the masses at all costs. Brute force is not always a bad thing. Especially when it’s your server that’s exerting the force.

Tags: AutoDesk, CAD, CAE, Data Reuse, Design Automation, DriveWorks, Inventor, KBE, MCAD, MCAE, mechanical design automation, part libraries, PLM, Pro/Engineer, RPM, SolidWorks, solidworks components, Tacton