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What is SOLIDWORKS PDM?
The SOLIDWORKS product data management (PDM) packages help you get a handle on your engineering design documents. You can securely gather and index data for instant retrieval, eradicate version control problems and data loss. In this video product expert Graham Keating explains the core benefits and principles of PDM.
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So PDM stands for product data management and it's a system that really gives you benefits in three main areas. The first one is the management of the design data and files, revision management, that type of thing. Second thing is the control of the actual processes you use to design and release information. And the third thing is it's a way of sharing and collaborating the right information to people. I got a customer that had been using SOLIDWORKS for 15 years. There were 10 designers and over that 15 years they'd created a bird's nest of SOLIDWORKS data. So one of the engineers told me that it was quicker to get the PDF drawing from the drawing stores and remodel it than it was to find the original model. So that in itself was ineffective because he was wasting time in the right. So he was wasting time redesigning something essentially. But the other main issue is he was creating a duplicate and in creating a duplicate. He was increasing the likelihood that it would get out of date. And because it's getting out of date, it's more likely that someone's going to reference that in a new assembly or actually even worse on the manufacturing shop floor actually reference that information and make something a whole batch of components to the wrong version of the drawing, which essentially could lead to scrap. So without PDM, the files are stored in Windows Explorer. And essentially the only thing you've really got to search on is the file name. And the file name may not have all the information in need, what the description is, the material and all those sorts of things. So it's very difficult to find things. Whereas within a PDM, you can find a PDF file name. The PDM system has got a rich set of search tools that enables you to search on information that you've stored in the system, like the description, the material, the who approved it. And it's even got full content search and it enables you to search the entire drawing sheet for text to information like the customer name, or the project number or the works order number. So we've been implementing SoloX PDM with our customers for over 10 years. And during that time, we've developed a methodology and a best practice that's encapsulated in templates, which we use as a starting point for your implementation. So rather than starting with a blank piece of paper, we can show you how everyone else is doing it. And then we can modify that and tailor that to suit your specific requirements. And in that way, we can get you up and running in a minimum amount of time to get an immediate return on investment with the reassurance of knowing that the way we've set it up works. PDM is not just for the engineers. Everyone in an organisation can benefit from the capabilities of PDM. For example, they can use the search tools to really quickly and easily find information. And because they're getting it from a central location, you're going to know and can be sure that they're looking at the right information. We can use the workflow capability to control their access via the status of the documents. So they can't see work in progress designs, but they can see stuff that you've released from manufacture. PDM doesn't just manage SOLIDWORKS. It can manage any document or any piece of information that you're creating during the design process. So if you're generating technical publications, if you're doing technical specifications, bids, quotes, QA documentation, assembly instructions, all of that information can be managed inside SOLIDWORKS PDM. And if necessary, related back to the original CAD design. The great thing about SOLIDWORKS PDM is it sits inside Windows Explorer, and that's an interface you're already familiar with. As well as that, SOLIDWORKS was designed specifically to work in Windows Explorer. So when you combine those two things, you have an interface that just lets you get on with using SOLIDWORKS, doesn't stop you from doing things in SOLIDWORKS, and doesn't really interrupt the flow that you've already got. So it's completely familiar to you. It just liberates you from all the shuffling of files and trying to work out what to call files and all that stuff that's not really giving your business any benefit. SOLIDWORKS