Hi 'Sheet Metal Professionals',
Recently I was involved in an interesting discussion. We had been talking about sheet metal components, which states (like bended and flattened; and obviously some more) are important and how those different states should be handled. As you can imagine there had been different opinions and now I am really curious about your opinion on this.
So, I have some questions for you and I am hoping to get your feedback:
I am wondering how you handle the different states of sheet metal. I.e. a sheet metal component has at least two specific states: The folded part and the flattened part as well.
But do you have any other states that are important for you? I.e. do you have a ‘post-bended’ state (that shows the part in a manufactured state; additional holes that are added after the bend operation, milled areas that are applied after the part has been bended)? Any other states that you have to be cover with SolidWorks (minimum blank size as a physical state? Or something else that is important to you?)
How and when do you decide which feature has to go into which state?
How do you handle those states in conjunction with PDM? Do you have different identity numbers or are all states the same item?
It would be great if you could share your best practice with me and let me know how you handle sheet metal components. In addition, I would really appreciate if you have some nice models that show / explain your practice.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.
Kind Regards
Frank
Product Definition Team
We find Solidworks very good now for what we do with our sheetmetal.
Do not use PDM, but the part stays the same number while in manufacturing. Sometimes use a sub number is it becomes an assembly or if postprocessing is done ie. plating, painting powdercoat etc.
We issue full processs drawing to our floor people in that we use configurations to break down the part bend by bend so the operators see the part go thru its progression from flat to bent (bended) and can check the dimensions fully at each stage.
I have attached a fairly typical file for us, the only thing is creating a separate assembly file so we can show weld nuts and CD studs etc. I am using 2009 and the newer versoions may have already a better way of handling that issue. Not the last sheet in the drw file has a BOM for the operator to use.