I hate losing things! Hate it! Few things stress me out more than when I can’t find my headlamp before any early ski adventure, or I can’t find a perfectly good “thing” and have to buy a new replacement “thing.” Sometimes, it can be the work of mischievous toddlers “mistaking” my stuff for their toys. Often, my headlamp can be found, battery drained, in the bottom of my girl’s toy box, but rarely found when needed.
Sadly, the worst reason things go missing is that I failed to put it back where I found it.
I bumped into the same thing while working as an engineer. A new project or contract would be sold by the company and the scramble to execute would begin. True detective work was required, coordinating your coffee break to coincide with the old salt engineer who knows every project going back 25 years. Then some bird dogging across different servers, different machines and different retired accounts. Hopefully, there was a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow or, at least, an old rusted pot with a one of the released drawings, not the latest mind you, of the engineering and designs. Finding all the supporting documents was equally challenging. Are you tired yet?
Now for searching, finding the exact files within the data was the hardest of all since humans are terrible at classifying things consistently. Don’t believe me? Just google how many different ways to spell Ashley, or is it Ashlee?
This is an area where DM, data management software, makes life so much better.
Having one central database where all the engineering and supporting documents are stored. Files are secure with versions and releases saved. Searching is more effective using properties, and a data management tool can require your team to fill in certain properties before finishing. This ensures the description is never blank! Also, the ability to take a large assembly, copy it and give it all new numbers is slick!
If you currently use Autodesk Vault or are interested in learning more about the product, check out some of the highlights in this video.
– Tyler Beck, Technical Marketing (Vault & PLM 360)
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