Will be starting to implement CADLINK for data transfer to Epicor

Yes I would say we are now complete with this implementation. So here's how I've set this up for us.

After an Engineering Change is approved (or could be at any time), a user will right click on an assembly or item and select "Run CADLink". They are then prompted with a login for Epicor.

Cadlink then reads the PDM BOM, and asks you for the BOM template you'll be using. It pulls all the variable data from the default tab unless you specifically tell it to read from the @ tab. It then shows you a grid display similar to this picture below, any changes are highlighted yellow, new parts in green, etc....

You can add a generic BOO to the file, which is generally only useful on a first time part upload. Or just hit save changes, and that will write the data into Epicor.

Prior to all of that:

The first thing I did was make a CADlink tab on our CAD data card:

All of those variables appear in the BOM template BOM-ERP that I created, along with "configuration", and "found in" version.

There were several customizations that I requested, and suggested to CADLink that we implemented:

• The ability to choose "as built", or not.
• If choosing as built, an option to choose which version
• The ability to identify items that could belong to multiple UOM classes and be able to select what's appropriate
• The ability to run CADlink on parts, not just assemblies (I use paste as reference to make some BOMs)
• The ablilty to select how many levels of the BOM you wish to show, 1 through x, or -1 for all levels.
• Added an "EPICOR JOBS" tab that lists all open production orders that are affected by a bom change, this can be used for disposition of materials

A couple suggestions that haven't made it through yet:

• A simple "find" button on the grid display, with hundreds of items you need to look close and scroll through.
• A print function

Other notes

• This does not work from the search tool.
• Data for all configs must match on the epicor tab to avoid any mismatches after uploading. Set vars to "update in all configurations"
• I don't use this for BOO's, I don't think it's effective.

Overall this took us a couple months from start to finish. Qbuild never came on site, but they were normally very fast to respond to problems. It did require a lot of remote connection time on my part. I think they are good on the Epicor and API end of things, and ok, but not great in Enterprise. And the last few customizations they wanted to quote me a price for implementing, I passed. Spec out exactly what you want before you agree to purchase.

If you have any other questions just ask:

Corey Hinman,

CEPA, ePDM Black Belt