Hi everyone,

I am using solidworks to make skid/frame designs where we mount the equipment on.  Since each project is generally custom, the designs can change a bit based upon input from the shop etc.  My issue is that once I have sent a drawing out back, the structural members will all be cut and labelled according to the cut list.  So all the pieces will be laid out and numbered by item # and cut in the length/qty that is required.  Then construction begins.  If we make a design change, and a piece gets taken out of the model, the cut list will automatically update accordingly.  This means that, say item #27 2" angle gets changed to a 1" angle, then it will be removed from the cut list and the 1" angle piece will be added at the end.  In this process, all item #s after 27 shift up one # so that the previous #28 is now #27, #29 is now #28, etc.  So the numbers that the shop has used to identify each piece are now rendered useless.

How have other people dealt with this, and is there any way to lock the list so that it will just say #27 - not used anymore or something along those lines?  Can I manually input a line?  Do you just export to excel and manually update it from the first release on?

Thanks.