Under the Hood

Autodesk Vault and PLM 360 Integration

Great news for Autodesk Vault and Autodesk PLM 360 users! The Vault/PLM360 synchronization utility is in the final rounds of testing, and I have compiled a sneak peek video on the integration  - here – out on the PLM 360 Wiki Video page.

The first phase of the integration will provide a seamless push of Vault Professional (2013) Items to PLM 360 upon moving to the Release state. In the image below, this Bill of Material has been 'Released' in Vault Professional, and is sent to Autodesk PLM 360 (next image).

All Item, Bill of Material, structure, rev level, and quantity will be sent to PLM. In addition, select Item properties (UDP’s) will populate and update Items in PLM 360.

The sync configuration will involve setting up an optional Vault user account (similar to ‘Job User’), choosing a PLM 360 tenant, configuring a Workspace, and mapping Vault Properties to PLM 360 fields. Please see the video for more details. This is for Vault Professional 2013 only, and due out shortly.

In the mean time, consider brushing up on Vault Professional Items (hint, hint). To help prepare you, I’ll be reviewing Vault Item theory on this blog and calling up posts and AU papers from the past.

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/PLM_360/enu/community/Videos/Autodesk_Vault_Professional_to_PLM_360_Synchronization

Enjoy!

 

-Brian Schanen

Vault 2012 Feature Spotlight: Improved Where Used Analysis

Within Vault Family 2012, the Where Used tab provides an additional level of detail by allowing user to see not only parent files, but Items and Change Orders. This provides all users with a simple, single access point to analyze the impact of change to Files.

Now, by default, all of the Where Used options are not checked. Click the filter icon and check the necessary boxes to display all ‘parent’ objects related to a file.

 

-Brian Schanen

Autodesk Vault and AutoCAD Mechanical

Autodesk Vault provides a powerful integration with AutoCAD Mechanical. In the following video watch as Markus takes us from geometry creation inside AutoCAD Mechanical, through to Bill of Material and Item creation within Vault Professional’s Item Master.

 

-Brian Schanen

Custom DWF Watermarks in Vault Pro 2011

Autodesk Vault Professional 2011 can apply watermarks to 2D DWF renditions of drawing files to communicate to consumers the status of the design, helping to alleviate accidental production against an incomplete article. However, the 2011 release now introduces the ability to utilize Vault properties as part of the value of the watermark, providing consumers with more dynamic watermarking information within the visualization file, helping keep them up to date. Further, watermarks may now be multiple lines of data, providing even more useful information.

-Brian Schanen

Another one for the Admins – easy configuration with Vault Pro 2011

Administrators and users alike will find more consistency between the file environment and the item environment with the Autodesk Vault Professional 2011. Property sets are now based on categories for file and item objects, making the administration and creation workflows consistent between the two environments.

Further, just as files used rules to assign categories to a file object in the previous release, rules may now be used to determine which category gets assigned to an item, added more configurability and flexibility to your deployment. Finally, categories bring the added benefit of exposing multiple revision schemes to items, now giving users the flexibility they need to change the revision scheme on an item as business demands.

-Brian Schanen

Improved Usability with Vault 2011

A new video has been posted to the Autodesk Youtube channel highlighting some of the customer-driven enhancements to the Autodesk Vault 2011 family. Check out the video to see new features like:

• Change Orders on Documents
• Customized watermarks on 2D DWF
• Office Document viewing on the Preview tab
• New Transmittal Report functionality.

We’ll focus on each of these soon in further detail. Enjoy!

-Brian Schanen

Managing CAD Components through Items

Today we’ll continue the previous post on Items and discuss their relation with CAD files

Items are easily created from CAD files (Inventor, AutoCAD Mechanical, Electrical, etc.) by promoting file data into a new Item using the 'Assign Item' feature. Note that these can also be created in a manual manner, similar to creating contacts in an email system. Upon the creation of an Item, a unique identifier is assigned using on of the available standard numbering schemes as defined by the system administrator. These components contain a list of system defined properties, such as Item Number, Item Type, and Item Title and Description. These properties will help users easily decipher a particular component from others. These components will maintain an interactive record of their revision history, including changes made to properties, associated and attached files, along with bill of material changes.

Each Item may contain a list of other items that it depends upon, creating a bill of materials (BOM). Users may build a BOM by simply editing the Item and adding another Item as a child. Further, as items are generated from the design files and listed in the Item master, a complete and accurate bill of materials is automatically created based on the assembly structure of the design found within the vaulted design files. By directly extracting the bill of materials, the chance for errors is virtually removed that are commonly found with manual methods.

Why is this important? Companies that track this data using paper based processes or using tactics such as spreadsheet management may now keep a living electronic record of their products. At any given time and date, users will be able to review a revision based or time based view of a product, including the bill of materials, the usage, as well as all related property information and access all related files. This permits companies to quickly and easily access the data they need to support their customers, as well as obtain a better understanding of how change has impacted or will impact their designs. Lastly, search and reuse of existing data is easier with a vast database full of product property information.

-Brian Schanen

A Closer look at Items

While engineering and design departments typically talk in terms of drawings and CAD files, purchasing, manufacturing, and inventory talk in terms of Items. Vault’s definition of an Item is the master record for all entries found in an ERP system. Think of an Item as the unique identifier that tracks all related data to a physical part, assembly, or document. In order to more effectively bridge this informational gap between engineering and the rest of the manufacturing organization, design data placed within Autodesk Vault can be assigned to an Item within the Item Master in Autodesk Vault Manufacturing. The Item Master is represented as a grid of all Items found within Autodesk Vault Manufacturing.

The Items found in Autodesk Vault Manufacturing's Item Master hold the bulk of the information that is shared with the rest of the manufacturing organization. To begin, the Item is the gateway for enterprise to get to key engineering data. The Item keeps track of the key associated CAD data and the correct versions that are required to properly build and manufacturing a product. Further, all critical data that will assist in manufacturing and supporting a product, such as specifications, supplier and catalog information, and engineering calculations can be attached to the Item for future reference. With one key source for the enterprise to look for data, the chance for errors due to personal looking at the wrong data is greatly reduced.

Key information, such as item number, title, description, revision, and type are all stored within the Item. More information can easily be added to the Items. Users can add customizable information to an Item record to provide additional documentation such as plant location or design group. In addition, you can customize fields in the Item record to display important manufacturing or production information without the need for special administration.

Next post we’ll examine Item creation from CAD files in Vault Explorer. Stay tuned…

-Brian Schanen

Modifying the Resolution Method for Duplicate Items Using the Item Import Wizard

If you regularly import Items from an ERP system, you may have noticed that if you have a duplicate Item already created and that Item has a property that has been populated post-Item import, the property is overwritten, even if it is blank.

To circumvent this, the User Interface (UI) in Productstream 2008 for the item Import Wizard allows you to double click an individual Item and then choose to either ignore or overwrite the existing Item.

* Ignore will leave the Item existing in Productstream alone.
* Overwrite will overwrite any changes to the Item existing in Productstream.

Steps
1. Select “Item Master” in the Productstream Browser

2. From the File Menu, select Imports Items

3. Choose “Other” then click “Next”

4. Select the file format for your Item Import and your file then click “Next”



5. Map the properties.



6. Import the Items



7. Once imported, edit a property that was blank, in this instance the “Item Description”



8. In this example two items have had their “Item Description” property edited, one will be overwritten one will not.



9. Repeat the process with another txt file that contains duplicate Items.



10. Use the same Mappings



11. In the Preview Results dialogue box, double left click the Item you would not like to Overwrite.



12. This opens this “Conflict Resolution” Dialogue box. As well as choosing to Ignore or Overwrite, there are a number of other options here too.



13. When “Done” is clicked, notice that the Item we wish to keep is using an “Ignore” Resolution Method



14. Notice that when the import is completed, one item is overwritten, one is not.

Part 2 of 2: Merging and Consolidating Duplicate Items During Assign Item

As we discussed in Part 1; when working with Items in Productstream, it is possible to have components in a design that may actually be duplicate information to an already existing Item. Because of this, when an Item is assigned, Productstream provides a method for resolving possible duplicate items.

When using Autodesk Inventor, Productstream will use the information extracted from the ‘Part Number’ property to identify duplicate information. During the ‘Assign Items’ process, the ‘Find Duplicates’ dialog will show the duplicates and allow you choose the Item that the CAD data should be assigned to. It the ‘Auto-select first duplicate’ option is selected; Productstream will select the first Item that is deemed as the duplicate.



This process is the default behavior with Autodesk Inventor due to the ‘Part Number’ property being designated as the ‘Equivalence’ property. This allows Productstream to compare Part Number information in the search for duplicate data.

When using AutoCAD Mechanical there is no default property assigned as the ‘Equivalence’ property, due to the flexible nature of the AutoCAD Mechanical BOM.

To assit with this issue Productstream will use a BOM Column named ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’ if it is found in the drawings BOM.

To Create the BOM Column in AutoCAD Mechanical:

Select the Properties button in the BOM Dialog.



Enter the name and description of the new property as ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’.



Enter a formula mapping the field to an existing property that is used to uniquely identify the components.



Uncheck the visibility option for the new BOM column.



Press the OK button to apply the changes.
Press the OK button to close the BOM dialog.
Save and Close the drawing file.

When the ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’ column has been added to the BOM, Items being added from AutoCAD Mechanical which have duplicate values for this property will be recognized as duplicate data.

This will help to prevent duplicate Items being created when assigning items from AutoCAD Mechanical drawings.