I love visuals in place of linear data, vis-à-vis spreadsheets. Even though Excel is actually a piece of software Microsoft nailed, I still find myself wanting to see my data in something more than rows and columns, especially at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when it’s easy to get cross-eyed. I’ve come across countless organizations where Excel is used rampantly and as the habitual default – even when there are professional tools available to them.
With all of the PDM conversations I’ve had, I’ve started making it my goal to see how many Excel spreadsheets I can kill with one application. SOLIDWORKS PDM has stepped up to the plate in spades and now we have the addition of SOLIDWORKS Manage.
The focus of this blog post will be to present scenarios of organizations I’ve visited and their usage of Excel in lieu of professional tools. And yes, there is plenty of custom tools for Excel, so I will be exploring its use as an out-of-the-box (OOBT) tool with no custom tools for automation. Side note on custom tools – with security and viruses, these tools create an extra layer of software management for your IT department.
First, how does one get data into Excel? Copy/paste, export from somewhere else or File > Open from a neutral format – all of these and other methods make it quite easy to get the raw data into Excel.
Second, once you have the data in Excel, then it’s time to clean it, filter it, sort it, spin, rinse and fold then put away. If it’s a repeatable process, then you can streamline these steps. But even talking with my own controller, he’s had to do a lot of manual processing over the years to get data in and back out to our managers.
Third, most users will want to color code, conditionally format, build pivot tables, etc. to better “see and absorb” their data.
With SOLIDWORKS PDM and Manage, you can tag team much of your Excel needs and knock them out of the ring…
Let’s take a look at a few customer scenarios to lay out the problems and solutions:
Solution: SOLIDWORKS PDM and/or SOLIDWORKS Manage. Both tools have great OOTB features and methods to track and manage product lifecycles. No need to collect data as designers perform their tasks, which automatically update product lifecycle information. SOLIDWORKS Manage Dashboards and Reports then present the data to all users to easily consume.
Solution: SOLIDWORKS PDM is great at creating part numbers. There are countless organizations who already rely on their PDM vault to create their part numbers. From simple sequential numbers to smart numbers, SOLIDWORKS PDM is definitely the way to go. Toss those spreadsheets out and let SOLIDWORKS PDM create and manage your part numbers for you.
Solution: SOLIDWORKS PDM and/or Manage. SOLIDWORKS PDM has great tools to extend your design and build out your Bills of Materials. Whether you use your SOLIDWORKS Computed BOMs or build out a Named BOM with non-modeled items you can then use automated tools to export them to XML for your ERP to gobble up. SOLIDWORKS Manage expands the use of BOMs even further so you have lots of options.
Solution: SOLIDWORKS Manage. Wouldn’t it be great to create a project, define its Gantt chart, assign tasks with hours assigned/needed and completion percentages AND be able to attach a Bill of Material, SOLIDWORKS design data or just needed PDF and Office files? All in one place!! Add Dashboards and Reports that pull all the data together and you can’t lose.
Hopefully, if you’ve found yourself in one of these scenarios you have some knowledge to take a closer look at how you use Excel as a crutch.
By: Steve Ostrovsky • Technical Services Manager • TPM
Categories: Collaboration, SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS PDM