CAD Drawing Lifecycle

The CAD drawing is processed by moving it through the states in its lifecycle. For example, in the first state, a new CAD drawing is created and connected to the appropriate change objects and part objects. The Design Engineer then performs whatever CAD work is necessary to generate the new file(s) and checks them into the CAD drawing object. The owner of the CAD drawing then promotes it to the Frozen state.

Only users with these roles within the same collaborate space as the CAD drawing can change its state:

  • Baseline: Author, Leader, or Owner role
  • App-specific : Component Engineer, Design Engineer, Senior Design Engineer, Product Obsolescence Manager, Part Family Coordinator

If the CAD drawing is in a route, the route may be set up to prevent the CAD drawing from being promoted until the route is complete.

The CAD Drawing lifecycle includes these states:

This page discusses:

In Work

New CAD drawings are created in the In Work state. A CAD drawing's name can be automatically generated or calculated by the owner. In either case the Create New CAD drawing page is used to generate the CAD drawing and connect it to the appropriate ECO and part objects.

The owner performs whatever CAD work is necessary to generate the new file(s), then checks them into the object and promotes it to the Frozen state.

As the CAD drawing leaves the In Work state, the following checks are fired:

  • The CAD drawing must be connected to a change action or change order. Only one CA can be connected to the CAD drawing with "For Release" as the Requested Change value.
  • All earlier revisions of this CAD drawing must be at the Released state.

If these checks pass, the CAD drawing will be promoted to the next state.

Frozen

The CAD drawing is reviewed and approved from the Frozen state by the Responsible Manufacturing Engineer. The review should include viewing its file(s). The permissions in this state do not allow any new files to be checked into the CAD drawing. Once the Responsible Manufacturing Engineer is satisfied that the CAD drawing correctly defines the part(s) it is intended to specify, s/he promotes it to the Released state. The owner is also allowed to promote if the owner belongs to the same project and organization.

If the CAD drawing is connected to a part with the "Part Specification" relationship, then there must be a CA connected to the CAD drawing before it can be promoted to the Released state. No associated CA is necessary if the CAD drawing is not connected to a part, or if it is connected to a part with the "Reference Document" relationship only.

Note: Users with the Author role cannot promote development phase parts, production phase parts, CAD models, CAD drawings, drawing prints, or part specification from Frozen to Approved.

Approved

After the CAD Drawing enters the Approved state, all proposed changes connected to the CAD Drawing's CA are checked to see if they are also in the Approved state. If all proposed changes are in the Approved state, the CA is automatically promoted to the Frozen state. If any single proposed change connected to the CA is in a state prior to Approved, the CA is not promoted to the Frozen state.

Note: Users with the Author role cannot demote development phase parts, production phase parts, CAD models, CAD drawings, drawing prints, or part specification from Approved to Frozen.

Released

As a CAD drawing enters the Released state, an Action fires that disconnects all Part Specification relationships between the previous revision of this CAD drawing and its parts then connects identical Drawing Specification relationships between those same parts and this CAD drawing. This process has the same effect as if float were defined on the TO end of the Part Specification relationship.

Another Action also fires as the CAD drawing enters the Released state that automatically changes the owner of the CAD drawing to be a special user in the system, "Corporate." This locks down the CAD drawing so no additional changes can be made and it removes the CAD drawing from the engineer's desk.

In the Released state no disconnections of any relationships are allowed. Connections are however permitted to CR objects that want to revise the CAD drawing.