Design Planning and File Management for Large Assemblies
Whether you’re designing heavy machinery for the Pilbara mining sector or sleek consumer tech in a Sydney startup, the "she'll be right" attitude simply doesn't cut it when dealing with complex CAD assemblies.
As engineering students and budding professionals, it is vital to understand that the more complicated a design, the more planning is required before you even click "New Part." Failure to plan usually results in lost data, excruciatingly long rebuild times, and blown budgets.
In this guide, we’ll break down how to manage large projects effectively, ensuring your digital workflow is as robust as your physical designs.
The Foundation: Large Project Design Planning
Imagine trying to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge without a schedule or a material list. Chaos, right? The same applies to digital assemblies. Efficient design is a combination of many smaller disciplines that, when combined, make a massive difference.
Before you start modelling, you need a strategy. Reacting when you already have 15,000 parts in an assembly is too late.
1. Choose Your Technique
Decide which modelling technique suits your project best:
The Skeleton Model Technique: Ideal for large industrial machines, plant designs, or processing equipment. This allows you to visualise and select important interfaces at all sub-assembly levels.
The Master Model Technique: Better suited for consumer products (like car bodies or ducting). This allows you to use complex surfaces as the base for components, often resulting in multi-body parts.
2. Naming and Revisions
Nothing kills a project faster than files named Bracket_Final_V2_REALLY_FINAL.sldprt.
Naming: Will you use intelligent part numbering (e.g.,
300-01-05) or "dumb" sequential numbering? Ensure every file name is unique.Revisions: How will you capture changes? Define your revision scheme early (e.g., A, B, C or 1.0, 1.1).
3. Workflow and Context
Determine how documents move through your team. Also, be wary of in-context relationships. Keep them as simple as possible; complex links between files can degrade performance and cause errors if files are moved.
Implementing Your Strategy
A plan is useless if it stays in the manager's head. To make it work, you need to standardise.
Document the Approach: Procedures must be written down. The cost of documenting a plan is far less than the thousands of Australian Dollars (AUD) wasted on rework when a team member goes rogue.
Make it Accessible: Post your standards on the engineering intranet or a shared drive.
Use Templates: Ensure everyone uses the same Part, Assembly, and Drawing templates. These should have Custom Properties pre-loaded to auto-fill BOMs (Bills of Materials) and PDM data.
System Settings: Provide guidance on system-level settings to ensure everyone’s software performance is optimised for large datasets.
The Critical Role of File Management
Starting a project with the idea that you can just "figure out" file storage as you go is a recipe for disaster. You need to prevent data loss and human frustration.
The Goals of Data Management:
Multiple users can access files simultaneously.
Prevent users from overwriting each other's work.
Clear visibility on what is the "current" version.
Files are stored efficiently (often locally) for performance.
Understanding SolidWorks File Structure
For those using SolidWorks, remember it uses a single-point database. Information is stored in one file, and assemblies reference that file via pointers.
External References: These are absolute paths (e.g.,
D:\Projects\Gearbox.sldprt). If you move the file without a system to track it, the link breaks."Where Used": SolidWorks files don't inherently know where they are being used. Without a management system, finding every assembly that uses a specific bolt requires a slow, manual search.
The "Wild West" vs. PDM
How do you manage these thousands of files?
The Manual Method (The Wild West)
Some teams try to save everything to a central server. This creates massive issues:
No History: Who changed the file? When? Why? You won't know.
Network Lag: Opening huge assemblies across a network kills productivity.
Overwriting: If User A and User B both open a file, whoever saves last "wins," overwriting the other's work.
Product Data Management (PDM)
PDM is the industry standard for a reason. It is prevention, not a cure.
SolidWorks Workgroup PDM: Good for smaller teams at a single site (e.g., a small design firm in Brisbane). It tracks changes and controls access but struggles with multi-site connectivity.
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM: The heavy hitter. It uses an SQL database and creates "vaults." It replicates data to multiple locations (e.g., syncing the Perth office with the Melbourne office) to overcome network lag.
Why PDM?
Searchability: Find referenced files instantly.
BOM Management: Create lists and see "where used" immediately.
Security: Secure vaulting prevents unauthorised changes.
Revision Control: Never mistake an old prototype for the final manufacturing file.
The Bottom Line
Whether you choose a sophisticated Enterprise PDM system or a strict manual protocol, the rule remains: Manage your data, or it will manage you.
Investing time and budget into a proper file management system may seem like a hassle now, but it saves significant AUD and countless hours of frustration down the track. In the world of Australian engineering, professional data management isn't an optional extra—it's a core competency.