What's your Data situation?

[MJuric]

I'm curious as to what type and how much data people have. The perennial "What would you switch too" posts and responses makes me wonder what people are working with and how that effects their thought process.

For many years, 23 or so, I had no products, no long term, longer than the warranty "Product data". We obviously kept the models and data for longer but would rarely have a need to have to carry that data over if we did switch systems. The only real concern was "Library data" which was not massive and in many cases would benefit from a "Redraw"/upgrade anyway.

Where I work now they have multiple product lines which means TONS of legacy data that has to moved to any new system. PLUS the libraries, templates etc. Switching from one system to another is a multiple year undertaking and a seeming never ending battle.

So for a long time I would jump ships in a heartbeat and now I would cringe to even thinking about moving to another system.

The above factors wax and wane depending on how many people you have as well and what level they are at. Switching to a new system with a few seasoned CAD users is one thing but switching 100+ users of which 50% have only ever known a single system and are at best "CAD operators" is another project all together.

[jcapriotti]

CAD or PDM?

We have products will a long life and many shared components, so switching to a new CAD tool would be painful. We did it once in '98 (Catia V4 to SolidWorks 98). We remodeled everything over a year or two.

We are currently moving from PDM to Windchill. There is no mass data migration as we are changing our process which requires model changes and replacement in some cases. There are also some changes that Windchill requires of the model, particularly around configurations. We have a custom tool for updating properties to the new Windchill custom properties but its run one file at a time.

[MJuric]

CAD or PDM?

We have products will a long life and many shared components, so switching to a new CAD tool would be painful. We did it once in '98 (Catia V4 to SolidWorks 98). We remodeled everything over a year or two.

We are currently moving from PDM to Windchill. There is no mass data migration as we are changing our process which requires model changes and replacement in some cases. There are also some changes that Windchill requires of the model, particularly around configurations. We have a custom tool for updating properties to the new Windchill custom properties but its run one file at a time.

The company I'm currently at went from no vault to PDM. Also a painful process. We are "Supposed to" model the files out of the PDM from the old 2D drawings and then drop them into a "Bulk Check in" folder that "Automagically" reads the Rev Level from the drawing and applies it to the part(s).

Unfortunately what I'm finding is that this has been happening half haphazardly over the last 5 years or so. So we have "Families of parts" in our product lines where one assembly is in the PDM and released, but not all the parts for that assembly are in the PDM because those parts are used in another assembly that is not in the PDM. It's a nightmare to say the least.

The "Right way" to do this would have been to choose an assembly and then model up, move to the vault, check in and release ALL the parts and related assemblies with those parts...but no, that's to much work and we need to get this done NOW....so we can spend hours every time we have to deal with these parts later.

[JSculley]

The "Right way" to do this would have been to choose an assembly and then model up, move to the vault, check in and release ALL the parts and related assemblies with those parts...but no, that's to much work and we need to get this done NOW....so we can spend hours every time we have to deal with these parts later.

Or, move everything still outside the vault into the vault to a 'Incoming Files' folder. Depending on your needs, you can hide this folder from the general population. From there, it is much easier to correct any reference issues (Tools...Update References) and clean the files up to meet your PDM requirements. I still have files in this folder from our implementation 10+ years ago. If no one is asking about them, they obviously aren't important. When someone does ask for them, I can move them out of the folder to a current project folder and then they are responsible for cleaning them up.

Having files inside and outside the vault in a single assembly is madness.

[MJuric]

Having files inside and outside the vault in a single assembly is madness.

Uhhh, yeah. Not only that but instead of "Moving" files people have been copying files so we now have a situation where you have to question which one is the current file....absolute madness.

[matt]

If you have mostly prismatic parts (made from extrudes and revolves), upgrading to something with synchronous type capabilities is less of an issue. All prismatic shapes are directly editable. You don't lose anything. There are some situations where editing with synchronous is actually faster than editing in "native software".

With any change, I would keep an old version of the software handy, which is part of the problem when you look forward with on-line or subscription-only software. You need a legacy tool to print, make small changes, etc. A whole set of expectations has been built up around owning your software that the online/subscription people are just going to leave unfulfilled. You won't even have access to your data. There's no way in hell I'd make the kind of change where I don't own a license to use the software, and I don't even own my own data. I wonder how people who buy into this model justify all the concessions they're making?

My personal situation is just that I have to keep an old version of the software available because most of my models are surfaced, and I keep the models mostly out of courtesy for my customers. I've had more than a couple come back looking for old data. I could make a switch on a per-project basis.

[jcapriotti]

Having files inside and outside the vault in a single assembly is madness.

[MJuric]

With any change, I would keep an old version of the software handy, which is part of the problem when you look forward with on-line or subscription-only software. You need a legacy tool to print, make small changes, etc. A whole set of expectations has been built up around owning your software that the online/subscription people are just going to leave unfulfilled.

Completely agree. This is even more prevalent with "In the cloud" situations where not only do you lose ability to modify the data, but quite possibly your data is no longer available to you either.

As with all "Market changes" I suspect it will take a few "Big players" to get burned by these issues before the situation changes. So if a place like GM or John Deere ends up being told "Yeah, sorry you can't have access to your models unless you restart your subscriptions"....I'd think there'd be hell to pay.

[jcapriotti]

Completely agree. This is even more prevalent with "In the cloud" situations where not only do you lose ability to modify the data, but quite possibly your data is no longer available to you either.

As with all "Market changes" I suspect it will take a few "Big players" to get burned by these issues before the situation changes. So if a place like GM or John Deere ends up being told "Yeah, sorry you can't have access to your models unless you restart your subscriptions"....I'd think there'd be hell to pay.

I think in most all cases they would say your data is permanently yours. You can download it and move it elsewhere. The problem is no longer having access to legacy tools (Cloud or local) to modify it if needed. You must import it to another system.

A good example is one of our divisions switched from Inventor and Vault to SolidWorks and PDM about 3 years ago. They still use old copies of Inventor and Vault on an older version while they are transitioning and plan to for a few years. They no longer pay maintenance on IV/Vault. Since then, Autodesk switched to subscription only on new versions. So if this happened today, our company would have to continue to pay Autodesk until all data was completely migrated. Pretty big hit for the amount of licenses involved.

[MJuric]

I think in most all cases they would say your data is permanently yours. You can download it and move it elsewhere. The problem is no longer having access to legacy tools (Cloud or local) to modify it if needed. You must import it to another system.

Exactly. You might even be able to get access to the data but for the most part it's worthless unless you can do something with it.

I'm not sure how that works if the data is all on their severs and part of your subscription is paying for the storage space. I've not looked into that but I can see a situation where the company would say "Yeah the data is yours but it's on our servers and you are no longer paying to have access to it"...like renting a storage locker where they lock you out because you quite making payments but you didn't get your stuff out yet.

In short the entire model is rife with risk for the end user and until someone with some clout get's burned by some or many of these risks the trend isn't going to change.

[Ry-guy]

I think in most all cases they would say your data is permanently yours. You can download it and move it elsewhere. The problem is no longer having access to legacy tools (Cloud or local) to modify it if needed. You must import it to another system.

A good example is one of our divisions switched from Inventor and Vault to SolidWorks and PDM about 3 years ago. They still use old copies of Inventor and Vault on an older version while they are transitioning and plan to for a few years. They no longer pay maintenance on IV/Vault. Since then, Autodesk switched to subscription only on new versions. So if this happened today, our company would have to continue to pay Autodesk until all data was completely migrated. Pretty big hit for the amount of licenses involved.

As mentioned already, if your products are prismatic then CAD system changes really are not that difficult these days. Most CAD tools have the ability to manipulate brep geometry using some for of offset/replace face/move face capabilities.
@matt already mentioned what syncronous can do. I also think people should look at history-free modeling process as well. (I'm talking about taking 2D drawings in dxf format and quickly generating 3D data.)
I still don't understand everyones hang-up on "parametrics". I continually hear people moan things "I'm going to lose all my parameters in part." Big deal..you only have a block with a hole pattern and some cutouts! Not to mention how many parts you took the time to build "intelligence" into that never, ever went through a change.

As for maintaining legacy data, every company will have a different solution. It all depends on what the business "needs". Not neccessarily the business "want". I need the 3D in another system. I want to keep all my "design intent" and parametrics so I can make an unknown future change.

Any way you look at a migration you need to define a process for information control. Which system is "owning" system? Not neccessarily what system do you make the change in. How important are drawings to your business? Are you looking to move into the Model-based X world or are you still a 2D PDF driven world/supply chain. These questions, and many more can help flesh out your processes for managing legacy data.

I have a situation where I have 3-4 different systems, with more than 5 different data storage locations along with 2 different PDM systems. The data is scattered globally. Now, my company was just aquired and we are the medium-size fish now. Where do you go from here is our next big question.

[jcapriotti]

@Ry-guy Its very company specific. If we switched CAD systems, it would be very painful. Many of our parts are "configurable". SE with ST is nice but we would lose all "intelligence" in the model based on equations.

What about parts with many configurations? Does SE read and recreate the configurations with all associated intelligence and properties? Same with assemblies.

Also what about drawings, what does SE do with those?

[Ry-guy]

@Ry-guy Its very company specific. If we switched CAD systems, it would be very painful. Many of our parts are "configurable". SE with ST is nice but we would lose all "intelligence" in the model based on equations.

What about parts with many configurations? Does SE read and recreate the configurations with all associated intelligence and properties? Same with assemblies.

Also what about drawings, what does SE do with those?

Configs get read over during the "conversion" process. There are a couple YouTube sessions on this.
Drawings also get recreated in SE (if you want). The funny part here is that SE uses the SW API to actaully help with this process! Section views, attributes, etc. all get mapped over to the equivalent SE "unit". There's also an early (2018-9) YouTube video on this.

I find it hard that many users have "intelligence" in their their SW models. SW is pretty limited on what it can handle. That's why those customers that require that level of design control use something like DriveWorks to control and drive their designs. SE continues to improve their abilities to manage and "program" equations. It won't be anything like NX has but they are continually improving.

[bnemec]

As mentioned already, if your products are prismatic then CAD system changes really are not that difficult these days. Most CAD tools have the ability to manipulate brep geometry using some for of offset/replace face/move face capabilities.
@matt already mentioned what syncronous can do. I also think people should look at history-free modeling process as well. (I'm talking about taking 2D drawings in dxf format and quickly generating 3D data.)
I still don't understand everyones hang-up on "parametrics". I continually hear people moan things "I'm going to lose all my parameters in part." Big deal..you only have a block with a hole pattern and some cutouts! Not to mention how many parts you took the time to build "intelligence" into that never, ever went through a change.

As for maintaining legacy data, every company will have a different solution. It all depends on what the business "needs". Not neccessarily the business "want". I need the 3D in another system. I want to keep all my "design intent" and parametrics so I can make an unknown future change.

Any way you look at a migration you need to define a process for information control. Which system is "owning" system? Not neccessarily what system do you make the change in. How important are drawings to your business? Are you looking to move into the Model-based X world or are you still a 2D PDF driven world/supply chain. These questions, and many more can help flesh out your processes for managing legacy data.

I have a situation where I have 3-4 different systems, with more than 5 different data storage locations along with 2 different PDM systems. The data is scattered globally. Now, my company was just aquired and we are the medium-size fish now. Where do you go from here is our next big question.

@Ry-guy I wish what you are saying were true. We terribly underestimated the expense of remodeling our product set from Solid Edge to Solidworks. We haven't really kept up with the cost but the cost of remodeling the parts and assemblies that we need to move forward is now beyond the cost of SW and PDM was. I would not say that "CAD system changes really are not that difficult these days." can be applied as a blanket statement.

[SPerman]

Configs get read over during the "conversion" process.

I didn't think parts had configurations in SE.

[jcapriotti]

Configs get read over during the "conversion" process. There are a couple YouTube sessions on this.
Drawings also get recreated in SE (if you want). The funny part here is that SE uses the SW API to actaully help with this process! Section views, attributes, etc. all get mapped over to the equivalent SE "unit". There's also an early (2018-9) YouTube video on this.

The migration is impressive. Some cleanup and a little data loss but better than starting over by far. There is a lot of SolidWorks out there so it was definitely worthwhile to develop this. If Dassault shoots itself in the foot with 3dx and it's handling of desktop, this would play in Siemens hands nicely.

I find it hard that many users have "intelligence" in their their SW models. SW is pretty limited on what it can handle. That's why those customers that require that level of design control use something like DriveWorks to control and drive their designs. SE continues to improve their abilities to manage and "program" equations. It won't be anything like NX has but they are continually improving.

Intelligence in equations at a base level, it's about on par with the base NX equations, at least when I last used NX4. So relating features with relations and equations to maintain design intent for a configured part. Driveworks or Tactonworks would be for full product level configuration throughout the structure and would be more comparable to the Rulestream module in NX I believe.