I've just gotten started evaluating Aras Innovator as a PDM solution. I have been able to work out most of the functionalities we need it for, which is mainly related to keeping track of our CAD documentation. However, there are two things that get in the way, one of them being how to open assemblies from Innovator (it seems I need to open the individual parts separately to have them appear in the assembly) and the other being how CAD document revisions are handled.
Let's say I have an CAD assembly named "Assembly 1" which consists of "Component 1" and "Component 2". They all start out as revision A. At some point I make a minor adjustment to "Component 2", bringing it to revision B. The change is small enough that I see no reason to revise the assembly. However, I want the structure for the Innovator CAD document for "Assembly 1" to reflect this update so that it now points to "Component 1 revision A" and "Component 2 revision B". I want to avoid having to revise the entire product structure for minor changes to components used.
I tried changing the Life cycle maps for CAD, Part and Document to set the released behaviour to float and thought this would make the assembly point to the new revision. That changed nothing though.
A workaround would be to step in as an administrator and update the CAD document structure to replace superseded revisions but I'd much rather have it automated to avoid unnecessary mistakes.
Any suggestions on how to proceed?
Former Member
The CAD Document item and it's ability to be related to Parts, BOMs, changes, etc. is used by the CAD Connectors created for Aras Innovator for CAD file management. The behavior to understand the related CAD Parts/Subassemblies/Drawings from a CAD Assembly is part of the CAD Connectors themselves. If you do not have a CAD Connector that understands the CAD authoring tool's parent-child relationships, you are going to end up doing it manually as you described. What CAD tool are you using? Are you interested in a CAD Connector to help with CAD file management from within the authoring tool? See link for more detail: www.aras.com/.../cad-integration
It is the behavior of the CAD Authoring tools that an update to a child part/assembly is a change to the parent. If you use the default revision scheme, this is how your scenario should work:
Assembly, Component 1 & Component 2 released at Rev A - relationship gets "locked" at this point, so that the Released Rev A of the Assembly will always know that is has Released Rev A of both components
Minor change is required for Component 2 that does not require changing the parent Assembly. If you do as follows:
Do a New Revision on Component 2, Rev B, this puts it into a Preliminary state at Rev B
Change Component 2 and Release it at Rev B
Released Rev A of the Assembly still points to Rev A of Component 2
The next time the Assembly is Revised, it will default to the latest revision of Component 2, i.e. Rev B.
If there is a desire to keep Assembly at Rev A while actually having been modified to use Component 2 Rev B, then you will need to change the default behavior so that the Relationship doesn't get "locked" on Assembly Rev A at Release, so yes, you need to change the Item Behavior to Float with No Life-Cycle Behavior.
Hope this helps!
I am very new to Aras. Are you saying that the top level assembly (EBOM) tracks the revisions of the children as part of the definition of the assembly revision? This would mean that, by default, lower level changes are not reflected in your product structure until you revise each higher assembly. Seems to me that the basic rules of EBOM are: "Latest and Greatest of all components all of the time, no exceptions". MBOM rules are different, requiring tracking of exact revisions used as this is the "As built" Assembly.
