Handling Manufacturing Drawing Workflow 1

[Transient1]

The situation is this:

I start with a block of material that is machined in house. It is sent out for specialized machining to vendor A. Then it comes back and is sent for specialized machining to Vendor B. Then it comes back and is finished in house.

What's the best way to handle this? Should each drawing have a made from note on it? Then, I need to include the rev on the made from note and linking that is a pain. Should the drawings all be independent and I have to specify each drawing in a manufacturing work order?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[dgallup]

I usually make one drawing with multiple sheets. The first sheet is the "product engineering" sheet with all the finished part requirements and specifications. Then subsequent sheets will have the various manufacturing operation sequences. That way we have one base part number xyz-123 but we can send out an xyz-123 op 030 and receive back in an xyz-123 op 040 etc. The out ops can be machining, heat treating, plating, etc. Each time something is done to the part the part number has to change so we can track it. Each sheet of the drawing has the same revision level as the first sheet.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[KENAT]

Transient,

I've seen this multiple step issue just handled by the mfg routing - only the engineering drawing for the finished part existed. Now some of these routings may have annotated copies of the drawing or their own simplified 'production plan' drawing but they weren't formally released engineering drawings.

If your documentation system can handle multiple parts detailed on one drawing (similer to '-' numbers' then dgallup's approach is attractive.

Otherwise the idea of separate drawings with each saying 'make from' is arguably most robust, if not necessarily more efficient.

If you're using revisions 'properly' then arguably you shouldn't need to worry about tracking that in the body of subsequent drawings, just the part/drawing number.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[mcgyvr]

For something like that you need multiple part numbers. For example
Starts as part #block1 (made from aluminum)
MFG A would get a purchase order for #block2 (made from customer supplied #block1)
#block2 is received back to you
MFG B would get a purchase order for #block3 (made from customer supplied #block2)
#block3 is received back to you
#block3 is machined in-house and becomes #block4 (made from #block3)

Each part number has its own drawing and revision if needed.

Engineering needs to think about other departments too.. like inventory/shipping/receiving/accounting,etc..

The day you actually get a real ERP system you will thank me.

 

[1gibson]

When you send "it" out to a vendor, you don't get "it" back, you get a part back that is closer to completion. Sort that out and the drawings won't be much of an issue.

 

[Transient1]

Thanks for the input. I just wanted to see if there was a way of doing it that I hadn't thought off.

 

[dgallup]

Agreed you need multiple part numbers. It's just a lot easier to track the progression if there is a base part number and a series of operation numbers. We do the same thing on the shop floor as parts move from one machine/process to another, the only difference is if it's an "out op" or not.

We used to use a system like mcgyvr with completely separate drawings, frequently drawn by separate departments (product engineering, manufacturing engineering, etc.) on different CAD systems with no associativity, etc. It was a nightmare. What we do now with one unified model/drawing/CAD system is far less error prone not to mention faster and easier to keep the documentation up to date.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[Transient1]

It seems like our document management system does not allow ids like 1234-1000 op1. So we're kind of stuck with the individual part numbers. I think as long as there is a drawing tree and make from notes then how everything goes together is obvious.

 

[KENAT]

Do you have an ERP system? If so you should be able to assign each part a BOM which would consist of the previous level of manufactured part.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[321GO]

mcgyvr's post makes the most sense to me.
That way you can clearly differentiate between the stages.
The stages can be handled by different departments also, for instance inventory can store them at their different stages of production.
How would inventory be able to pull this of if the part had one ID trough out it's production stages???
Murphy's law lurking around the corner..

"Engineering needs to think about other departments too.. like inventory/shipping/receiving/accounting,etc.."

Hallelujah! I see this happening a lot around me and it causes major frustrations for just about everybody including engineering since the ball will come back at you at a later stage(when the trouble starts).

IMHO matters like this should be discussed with the people of the involved departments upfront. That i have learned.

Hope it helps something.