We don't have a lot of them, but there are occasions where they do make sense.  For example, I have a nozzle composed of a piece of tube welded to a fitting.  There are 30 different tube lengths, and I don't want to create 30 drawings for the tubes and another 30 drawings for the weldments. 

Before PDM, my solution was to create a part model for the longest tube and then create the remainder of the models as derived parts, with an additional cut feature to get them to the correct length.  Each was saved with a file name matching the unique part number used in the MRP system.  I then created the tabulated drawing using the original model.  Next, I created windows shortcuts to this drawing and renamed them to match the other 29 models.  So, if the original was 0001 and the others were 0002, 0003, and so on, the 0002 shortcut pointed at the 0001 drawing.  Thus, when someone went looking for 0002 because it was on a PO or something, they could double click the shortcut and it would take them to the tabulated drawing.  SolidWorks bills worked as expected because there were individual models for each tabulated part.  Configurations can also be used to achieve similar results.

With EPDM, this method no longer works because shortcuts aren't understood.  I'm thinking that the best approach would be to use references to attach the drawing to each of the 29 models, but if someone has a better idea, I would like to hear it.

Thanks.

Jim S.