Long time reader, first question. Directly a very big and complex question; I doubt my workflow is the most efficient so I would love your opinion on this one:

Most single parts that I model in Solidworks will eventually be made out of different sub-parts. But I do not want to model my design in an assembly because my base sketch is so important, it dictates all bodies. So I end up making a single part with separate bodies, this works best for me as I can simply adjust an angle or measurement in my main sketch and all tubes and parts will simply update.

Now think: Bicycle frame. In my 'base sketch' I have the geometry, frame size, etc. I sometimes need to be able to change these parameters very late in the design process. Using separate bodies in a single part alows me to do this, just like weldments for instant. So great, no problem.

But now we come to production. All the frame tubes need to have independent drawings. So the frame (which is one part) needs to be cut up by saving the separate bodies as parts. I need individual parts of all the tubes (about 10-30 per frame) in order to make drawings from each separate tube and frame part.

Here is where my question starts.

1) This is a very tedious job, saving all the bodies as parts. If you read what I am doing, do you think there is a better, more efficient work flow? I would love to have some better solution (maybe it already exists in SW and I do not know it?) something like save all bodies as parts, and all the parts automatically get the names that I already assigned to the bodies?

2) Now I end up with all the frame tubes as separate parts and I make drawings of these parts. You know of course, this is a lot of work, all the specific views, all the measurements, etc. Really you'd prefer to do this only once and as long as everything remains the same there is no big problem. But now my client wants a different frame size or different geometry. In the 3d drawing this is easy. But I would prefer to give this file a new name of the new framesize, but I can't unless I open all the separate parts made out of the bodies, so they will also update the name. But if I do this I loose the old framesize. So I have to Pack&Go the whole thing, rename in a separate folder, to keep all. Lots of work, considering all the 2d drawings also have to be resaved as DWG or DXF or PDF (or all three in most cases), anybody a better idea? Configurations could be an option but very dangerous to make mistakes in the drawings.

3) Talking about mistakes. If I change something in the main sketch of my frame design, I have to update all parts from the separate bodies, and then update all the 2d drawings. This is automatic as long as all files are opened. But the risk is that I forget one part and that drawing isn't updated. If this then goes into production..... lots of problems. My point is: it is very difficult and it costs a lot of time to figure out if all 2d production drawings have updated correctly. Not to mention that all these drawings then have to converted again.

I know people that use 'Weldments' should run into the same issues, right? I really hope there is a feature in solidworks that I did not discover yet and that makes everything much easier. I couldn't find much on this topic via the search function, but I can't imagine that this is not something everybody runs into from time to time.

So actually my big question is: How do you do this? What is in the long run the best work flow from a Main Part (consisting of many interdependent parts) all the way to 2d production drawings in DXF or DWG.