Multiple bodies of the same part

I've seen this a number of times in the past, but today I thought I'd question the forum.

I just received an .x_t file from a client this morning and upon opening it there were 1500 components in this assembly.

A lot of the components were fasteners of different types and sizes.

The point is that there may be 20 - 50 of the same size fastener and each is its own part file with a -1,-2,-3, etc. in the filename.

For example, 6 mm Washer_2-1.sldprt, 6 mm Washer_2-2.sldprt, 6 mm Washer_2-3.sldprt and so on.

I could probably cut the number of components from 1500 to 1000 if it would use the same part file for each instance instead of creating a new one each time.

Am I missing a setting for reusing the same part file in multiple instances?

I've seen this with other file types (.step, .igs).

Thanks for any input.

Mike

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