Your thoughts on PDM

General
1

I’m working for a startup with a regular staff of two. We are considering a move to a PDM system. The need is for several reasons:

  1. Making SW files available to all users
  2. Keeping data current for all users
  3. Offsite back up
  4. Retention of old revisions
  5. Recognition that growth of the company will multiply these needs greatly
  6. Our current system is a huge performance burden

We are looking for a solution that doesn’t cost a ton, won’t impact performance too terribly, although almost anything would be an improvement over Sharepoint/One Drive, and is easy to set up.

Can you recommend a solution for us?

2
  1. How many users (CAD and non-CAD)?
  2. What all files / applications do you need to support in a PDM?
  3. Do you sell standard finished products or one off designs?
  4. How many total files would need to be management and how much file growth is expected?
  5. Are all files expected to be handled with one workflow process or do you need several different processes for different situations?
  6. What’s your budget ceiling?
3

Everyone working on same location?

Remote access?

The web base SW might work for you.

4

We are in a very similar position.. I am also on a start up and we have 1-2 people actively using SolidWorks with another 2-3 non CAD people occasionally accessing the files. We also opted for implementing a PDM solution right from day one.

We use a solution called DataDesignManager or DDM, by CSI Ltd. I think is a great solution packed with all the major features that you would like from a PDM, at a very affordable price (depending on number of seats and license type, but we are talking hundreds/low thousands instead of high/tens of thousands). Their maintenance cost is also the cheapest I have ever seen. The solution is CAD independent and can support many platforms.

I believe this system will cover all the reasons that you listed on your post, plus more. At the moment, we are using it for version control, formal release of drawings, and controlling our CAD workflows. We use it only for CAD files, as we use a different system for our document management requirements, but you can also use it for Office files and other types, giving you effectively a document management system, if you like. It offers remote access and multi-site hosting, if you need that. I would encourage you to check it out.

Be warned of the following… a couple of years ago, Dassault Systems decided to change their SolidWorks Partner Program in line with their strategy to grow their own 3DEXPERIENCE platform, basically limiting the companies on it. DDM was affected by this, meaning that after 2027, they would not be able to support SolidWorks. There has been a large number of discussions and post about this, some on this forum if you are interested (need to find the link to it). Many people say that this has been a push from SW to force everyone to their own cloud based system (3DExperience). We had a look at it, and it is very basic and did not suit our purpose. This, plus some not very flattering comments about it on this forum, made us not go down that route.

We decided to stick with DDM due to the functionality, service, and value that they offered to us. In addition, they serve some very large companies with thousands of SW seats, making a solution to this more likely (i.e. it is not a small joe.blokes company with little leverage). At worst, we would need to stick with SW2026 for a couple of years before moving to another PDM if nothing is resolved.Nevertheless, it was a gamble. Last I heard, they are very much in line to be reinstated as development partners, but there has not been an official notification about this, so please do your own research about this.

5

PDM now, but as the company grows, will you need full-fledged PLM? The problem with “PDM only” solutions is most are great if all you are doing is managing engineering document and sharing PDF’s with the rest of the company with maybe a simple change workflow and revision management needs. If the company grows and depending on the product complexity, service life, need to track effectivities and generations, involving other departments involved in the product lifecycle workflow (product management, procurement, service, quality, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, sales), you will then be forced into PLM. Question is, do you do that now, or wait on the till the “mass” is big enough that it is required?

6

Currently using Mechworks, ~25 cad (SW) users between 2 sites. Have no idea to the cost/admin/setup/etc. It is not tied into the ERP system. https://www.mechworks.com/

Previous job l used DDM where it was also used for ECNs. Since DDM is on the other side of the pond one would get customer support replies the next morning. One thing I don’t like about Mechworks is if the network goes down one has to restart SW to reconnect Mechworks. Losing ones work since the last time SW was saved. With DDM one could restart DDM without restarting SW.

7

Wow, forgot about Mechworks, looked at them like 20 years back. Can’t find much up to date online other than they still exist. UI still looks like ti did 20 years back.

8
  1. Currently, 2 Solidworks users, 1 ECAD user, and 2 non-CAD users (.pdfs and stuff).
  2. It is most urgent to support Solidworks. Everything else is nice-to-have. We’d also like to control Kicad files and exports of the CAD files (.step, .pdf, .xlsx).
  3. We are working toward having standard products, but it seems likely that there will always be customization to suit the customer’s needs.
  4. We currently have around 6600 files. That has developed in the course of 16 months. It would be reasonable to plan on 5000 files per year.
  5. I don’t know how workflows are used, but I would expect it all to be the same.
  6. I haven’t been given a budget, but we’re thinking Sibe/Kenesto prices ($100-250 per month).
9

Yeah, we’re thinking about SW’s cloud solution. Have you used it?

10

Thanks, your comments are very helpful. I’ll take a look at DDM.

11

Many thanks.

12

Thanks for the input, Hawkeye. I’ll check them out.

13

If you have SolidWorks Professional or Premium, SolidWorks PDM standard is included. You have to have it on a server. It could be a virtual machine server. Ours is a virtual machine on an Azure server. We do have to VPN into the company network to access PDM. We have our VAR do our upgrades. This gets your SW users into the system. I think you can add other users, but I do not have any idea what the licensing looks like. SolidWorks PDM standard can make PDFs for you. We only use that as we go to release. We have a macro we run in SolidWorks to create all our draft PDFs. We store them in PDM. I have long term plans to update our PDF macro to copy the PDF to a OneDrive location, but it doesn’t have as straightforward a way to know where it should copy it to. When we worked on network drives rather than OneDrive, we had a folder naming scheme that I could use to automatically put the PDF in the right location. SolidWorks PDM standard can only have one workflow, and it has limits on the number of states. We have our library and template folders update when users log into PDM. For project folders, users need to pick when they will update the files.

Are you using any of the SharePoint/OneDrive workflows? I know they exist, but we haven’t set them up here. We use SharePoint/OneDrive for our project document files. We have learned that we can check out a file and check it back in with a comment. Only a few of us actually do that.

14

Yes, we discovered that we have licenses for the cloud service included. We don’t want to set up a server, as it is costly, time consuming, and we don’t have the resources. We’re going to take a look at their offering and compare it to the others we’re considering.

We are not using Sharepoint/Onedrive workflows. We have found Sharepoint, in particular, to be a real pain to use effectively and Onedrive’s performance has been abysmal, both of which are forcing us to look elsewhere.

Thanks for the suggestions!

15

If you are ok with having your data in a cloud based PDM, there is Sibe and Bild. No experience with either but both look basic and somewhat easy to setup.

16

Thanks for the suggestions.

17

Stay away from “another system” …

PDM is just bandage on a broken server structure.

I guess you have some sort of ERP that handles all the orders etc. That is this register that everyone should nurse and keep up to date.

Move all the parts to one folder and asm to another and so on.
So workflow is sort of: search in ERP by name → receive art nr and just browse and type.

And of course the ERP should be modern with search with suggestion and also not blocking user from quickly edit naming etc.

Search with suggestion is the only way to get normalized part names.

Currently I’m forced to use a braindead system called Arena. Its not a ERP but is the intermiditate register before it hit the ERP (Monitor).

So less system → less friction → more joyfully enviroment → more productivity …

18

We are using Teamcenter currently. It was set up to administer more than just CAD files, but it doesn’t do a good job. It is slow, inconsistent, and doesn’t quite provide the BOM information we need to have. I’d rather have a system that handles the CAD files well and doesn’t try to do more than that.

Dwight

19

Well said Dwight.

I’ve found that more often than not, in manufacturing companies, CAD file management and ERP/MRP/CRM… shouldn’t be in the same system. I’m not saying it is never a good fit, just that it’s seldom a good fit.

20

Big PLMs for CAD management falls into the jack of all trades, master of none space. Windchill is pretty poor at managing cad files. Most users here want PDM back for that part. I’ve heard other companies sometimes connect SolidWorks PDM to a PLM, even something like Windchill. Relying on ERP systems like SAP or Oracle are even worse. Of course big companies want one do it all system.