Before starting any new design project, it is important to choose the right strategy for working with SOLIDWORKS configurations. Failure to plan ahead can result in many unwanted and unnecessary linked Physical Products being created when saving new parts and assemblies. The result of this can lead to an unnecessarily complex experience for both SOLIDWORKS and other 3DEXPERIENCE users, loss of revision and lifecycle flexibility, and at worse degraded SOLIDWORKS opening and saving performance due to the additional items and information being managed in session.
Taking the right approach will enable you and your design teams to maximize the benefits of working in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform right from the start.
Understanding the Impact of maintaining Multiple Physical Product Configurations per part and assembly file
If a clearly defined single Physical Product configuration strategy for parts and assemblies is not put in place, then users can find themselves in the situation where multiple Physical Products are created for each file during the first save. Maintaining multiple Physical Product configurations per file can have several negative impacts on the user experience, and SOLIDWORKS performance.
- Multiple Physical Products representing one SOLIDWORKS part or assembly can make it difficult for users to easily identify which is the actual Physical Product that represents the engineering definition of the part or assembly file.
- Individual revision and lifecycle operations are applied to all the Physical Products related to a single part or assembly at the same time. It is not possible to have related Physical Products at different revisions or maturity states to one another.
- When opening or saving a SOLIDWORKS part or assembly that contains multiple Physical Product configurations, all of the attribute and lifecycle information for every Physical Product configuration is processed. This can negatively impact open and save performance in SOLIDWORKS.
- When a user deletes a Physical Product configuration from a part or assembly, this will cause issues if that configuration is externally referenced in other parts or assemblies. In some case, it may no longer be possible to save the file without either updating all external references, or removing the deleted Physical Product from all related product structures. (The latter can only be done using the Product Structure Editor or Engineering Release apps.)
Prototype and Production Parts and Assemblies
Recommended Strategy
Parts and assemblies designed and developed in-house, and for production, should only have one SOLIDWORKS configuration update as a Physical Product. This nominated SOLIDWORKS configuration should be configured to contain any key SOLIDWORKS properties related to engineering and manufacture.
The resulting Physical Product, in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, will represent a single engineering definition for that part or assembly including the maturity state, Enterprise Item Number, plus any Physical Product specific attributes.
When additional configurations are required to aid design in SOLIDWORKS, create them as Representation configurations so that additional Physical Products are not created.
For more information, please refer to the Part Configuration Use Cases and Assembly Configuration Use Cases sections of this guide.
To manage the two different configuration types, enable the following SOLIDWORKS option for all users: Update SOLIDWORKS files for compatibility with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
Maintaining one Physical Product configuration per SOLIDWORKS file reduces unnecessary complexity for all SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE users within an organization.
If your company uses SOLIDWORKS 2024, use the Remove CAD Family option so that only one Physical Product configuration can exist per file. With this option set, additional SOLIDWORKS configurations will be automatically created as Representation configurations.
NOTE: It is recommended that SOLIDWORKS part and assembly templates are updated with the CAD Family removed to make this the default behavior for every new part and assembly file.
For companies using SOLIDWORKS 2023 or earlier, users must manually choose which SOLIDWORKS configuration to nominate as the Physical Product configuration. It is not possible for the platform administrator to configure their 3DEXPERIENCE platform to make this the default behavior. Therefore, it is important that users are well trained and have a complete understanding of the recommended strategies from this section of the guide.
Saving Pre-existing SOLIDWORKS Designs to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
If you are an existing SOLIDWORKS customer adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, it is important to understand how configurations have been used in their parts and assemblies before any files are saved. Due to the versatility of configurations, it is common practice for design teams to treat configurations as individual part numbers. In that scenario, take time to carefully analyze the files and factored in to any migration project. (See the Working with Existing SOLIDWORKS Files page for details.)
If you decide to maintain any part or assembly configurations as individually life-cycled engineering items, then those configurations must be split or saved into individual part and assembly files, with each file containing only one Physical Product configuration.
NOTE: Saving configurations to individual files is a manual process that can be automated using a SOLIDWORKS macro.
Summary
Adopting the recommended SOLIDWORKS configuration strategy for prototype and production items will ensure that only one clearly defined Physical Product exists for each part and assembly in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This approach will enable you and your design teams to maximize the benefits of working in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from the start.
Standard Library and Purchased Parts and Assemblies
Recommended Strategy
Externally purchased parts and assemblies are typically managed in a library and are not modified or revised by the engineers who utilize them in their designs. When deciding which SOLIDWORKS configuration strategy to adopt for purchased parts, consider the following:
- Part files with configurations that represent different size variations
- If there are 20 or less configurations per part file, Physical Product configurations can be used without negatively affecting performance.
- If there are more than 20 configurations per part file, the one Physical Product configuration per file strategy should be used to maximize performance. Each configuration needs to be saved to an individual part file.
- In this scenario, Representation configurations must not be used to represent different size variations. Representation configurations are not saved to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Therefore, the size variation of the part will not be displayed in any of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform viewer apps.
- Assembly files with configurations
- For all assembly files, the one Physical Product configuration per file strategy should be to maximize performance. Each configuration needs to be saved to an individual assembly file.
Summary
When deciding on which configuration strategy to deploy for SOLIDWORKS library parts, . using one strategy and avoiding a mix of single and multiple Physical Product configuration library parts will help you maintain a consistent user experience.
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