Hi All,

My client is in transition between ditching WindChill and implementing some other PDM software as they find more and more SWX projects.  They may go with EPDM... no one knows yet.  But, life goes on, and the current project is being run "without a net".  We are venturing into "manual PDM" in Solidworks.  Were this a Pro/E project, I would know how to do this without question, just a lot of focus and diligence.  I am sure the same is true for SolidWorks (focus and diligence), the problem being the knowlege...

One mistake that was made that we need to live with was the decision to put the revision in the part name:

e.g. 01-0011-XX_A2.SLDPRT

where "01-0011-XX" is the part number and "A2" is the revision.

I know - this is probably a bad idea... but we're faced with it for now.

The challenge I have today is the master model - when the master model changes a rev. I can keep all of the parts that rely on it pointing to the new master by renaming the master using SolidWorks Explorer, right?  Then, all of the objects that look to that file for information will look to the file with the new name.

But,

There was a change to geometry and a subsequent change to the revision level (i.e. Part Name) and the user renamed the master model using Windows Explorer...  = broken link.

I want to change the name of the new master to the name of the old master to point the child parts to the new master.  Then I will use SWexplorer to rename the master to the new rev.  And then threaten all the users with bodily harm if they rename outside of SWexplorer.

Will this theoretically work?

And a bigger question is, what is the best way to ensure that the parts will always refer to the latest master, knowing that the master's name will change periodically?

Thanks a lot...

-Nate