Is Your SolidWorks Data in Shape?

Razorleaf has just released the new CADFIT tool for public consumption.  I don’t recommend actually eating or consuming the tool, but I do recommend that you use it.  “Well of course you do, you work for Razorleaf.”  Okay, that factor not withstanding, CADFIT is a really great tool to help you determine the health of your SolidWorks files, to check and see if they are “fit.”  

I wish I had a tool like CADFIT when I was doing engineering and design work.  So what does it do?  Basically it tells you how unhealthy your SolidWorks parts, assemblies, and drawings are.  Running CADFIT on your CAD data is like going to the gym and talking to a personal trainer.  The trainer will identify your key problems and show you the areas which need improvement.  The trainer does not magically fix all of your problems.  But the trainer does provide you with the tools and information so that you can fix these problems on your own.  Similarly, CADFIT gives you valuable information about your CAD files.  The tool provides possible locations of missing and out of context references, and identifies “true” duplicate files as well as files with the same name, but different content.

CADFIT gives you the following standard outputs: missing references, out of context references, duplicate files, and file count by directory and extension.  These reports can be a little scary when you realize your data is that messed up.  Here are some direct quotes from customers: “CRIKIE! How did we get 50 files all named bracket.sldprt!”  ”What the heck is Marvin doing with over half that production assembly on his local HD and not on the server?” and my personal favorite,  ”Good golly Ms. Molly, who moved or renamed SuperMoneyMaker.sldprt, now we are going to go bankrupt!”  Okay, so those may not be real quotes, but I think you get the idea. Those Razorleaf clients that have used the tool to date have, in fact, been surprised at the problems that the tool identified in their SolidWorks data.

Seriously folks, CADFIT is awesome. I would recommend it even if I didn’t work here. It is honestly that important to know the integrity of your CAD data.  Those of you considering moving from an unmanaged system of network drives and workstations to a PDM system should absolutely use this tool to clean up your files before you migrate them to a new system. If your data is sitting on shared drives and you’re not planning to deploy PDM anytime soon, use the tool to either A) convince yourself that your current system is good enough, or B) that maybe you should be thinking about PDM sooner than you thought.

And remember, I am not only the CADFIT president, I am also a client. I use CADFIT on every SolidWorks Enterprise PDM (EPDM) data migration and implementation to make sure the data in the system is consistent and that EPDM will run properly once the data is loaded.  Putting bad data, broken file references, and duplicates into the new system is like shooting yourself in the knee before climbing a flight of stairs.

So take my word for it, CADFIT is worth checking out. What have you got to lose, it’s free! Get started by downloading CADFIT now.

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Tags: best practices, broken file reference, CAD, Enterprise PDM, EPDM, EPDM Best Practices, EPDM Data Migration, EPDM Implementation, implementation, legacy data, SolidWorks