Reduce-Reuse-Recycle… Data?

Recycle Icon GlossyI’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.  Continue Reading

Look Under the Hood of PDM Systems

Let’s dig a little deeper in this final post on PDM engines (look here for the previous post). I think there are two reasons why it is helpful to have an engine-centric perspective on Product Data Management: to understand when you should/shouldn’t use PDM, and to fuel creative uses of PDM. Those may seem a little counter to each other, but let’s see how they’re related.
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Advanced Product Data Management Engines

From the last post on this topic, we’ve collected five basic “engines” at work in even the simplest Product Data Management (PDM) systems that manage CAD files:

  • File vaulting
  • CAD relationship interpretation
  • Multi-document file vaulting
  • Lifecycle
  • Security

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Recognizing Engines in Product Data Management

Most look at Product Data Management (PDM) systems and see software for managing/controlling documents, and maybe for performing other useful design/engineering housekeeping functions. When I look at PDM systems, I see collections of intertwined logic engines, connected to each other in meaningful ways to support configuration management practices. I like to break it down like this. Continue Reading