Data Management

You may have been using SOLIDWORKS for a while, or maybe you are just getting started. Whatever the case may be, there has never been a better time than now to think about managing all the files that you’re creating. Issues with missing references, incorrect revisions of drawings being used in production, or even overwritten files are all common challenges that are difficult to solve without a proper product data management (PDM) software.

Streamlining and integrating business processes across the organization is critical to improving productivity, eliminating mistakes, and ensuring your team always has access to the data they need.

While there are a number of solutions available to address specific business processes, all too often these are managed within incompatible applications, each one best suited to the task. This presents a number of problems that need to be overcome, including difficulty sharing and maintaining data between systems, and inflexible processes that cannot easily be aligned or integrated across the applications.

Design changes WILL happen, it’s just a matter of time. As an engineer, wouldn't you rather spend your time coming up with new ideas for the next generation of your design rather than trying to hunt through data to find what you need?

We’ve all been through situations where the wrong revision of a design was sent out for production, or maybe that CAD file was moved to another file location, and now you can’t find it. You can probably think of your own examples that are similar but may have had to do with a need for more powerful product data management (PDM) tools.

SOLIDWORKS PDM can help any organization focus their attention on designing better products instead of manually managing their files or the changes that need to happen with them. Here, we’ll focus on a few key aspects of SOLIDWORKS PDM that help you manage your files and change processes with ease.

Managing your product’s lifecycle is getting increasingly difficult as the standards for industries change and your data is spread out across many different applications. SOLIDWORKS Manage can help you reign in your data, allowing you to control and monitor the status of your projects and products.

In our recent webinar, "How to Master Bill of Materials and Changes with SOLIDWORKS Manage PLM," our Enterprise Solutions Specialist went over how SOLIDWORKS Manage can be used to bring all your data together to simplify your products lifecycle. We go through an exercise from the start of an engineering change request (ECR) process to its completion, while modifying components and the bill of materials along the way. We’ll show you how easy it can be to manage your engineering changes.

In reviewing the SOLIDWORKS Manage PLM projects our Hawk Ridge Systems Enterprise Solutions team has been involved in over the last four years, there are many variations:

• Migrations from legacy PLM systems for companies that are already in the SOLIDWORKS CAD ecosystem
• Upgrading from SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional because they needed more functionality
• Moving away from a Windows file system to their first formal data management and PLM system
• A variety of different vertical markets and industries
• A wide array in the amount of data analytics and/or project management they want included in phase one of the project plan (phased implementation vs. big bang)
• And much more