How do you like to manage shells? I'm really hoping that you know something cool that I don't.

I am analyzing a dump trailer (60,000 lb capacity). I have modeled it with shells and have about 500 surface bodies. I applied the thickness to the shells using the shell manager. I have then copied the study 8 times for 8 different loading conditions.

There are some things I don't like about this workflow and I'm hoping you have better ideas:

1. The shell manager is SLOW!!! Click then wait, then type a number, then wait. Sometimes I would only have to wait half a second. Other times it would take a few seconds. Multiply by a few hundred times and this really sucked. Then I would click the green check to exit the shell manager and would have to wait a long time (up to 21 minutes).

2. The other thing I don't like about my workflow is that each shell thickness is defined in each study. If I want to change a thickness, I will have to change it 8 different times. I could have linked the thickness to a global variable, but that would have required setting up hundreds of global variables (which also sucks).

Do you have any better ideas? Is there a way to define the thickness in the part file (like you can define the material)? How do you like to manage shells?