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Driss has a degree in industrial engineering and management from Munich University. He has been involved with Productstream Professional for over 10 years and works as data management consultant and project manager for Autodesk GmbH in Munich. He has managed a lot of projects including consultancy, implementation, training, and coaching. Some of his recent work includes presentations at TechCamp 2008 in Berlin, at Autodesk Industry Academy 2009 in Munich, the coaching of partners, and managing and implementing projects across Europe.

In this session I want to describe the different possibilities and Scenarios of collaboration. There are many ways to do a collaboration at first I want to show all that scenarios and describe the use cases and the solution we can provide In the next step we want to go deeper. We will examine and work out the needs and possible workflows we have. This will be described in the External Collaboration Overview. After that we will look in detail to the Workflow. There we will see the complete workflow and how we support it with our Vault product family. In the End I will do the summary followed by the Q&A session. If you have any questions during my session, please feel free to ask at the end of the presentation.

At first we want to see in a small picture which needs exists.

One Site: typically we have the need to work together on one design e.g. There is a packaging machine. This kind of machine has different assemblies with different tasks. For example - At first the parts has to be separated. After that the parts has to be in line. And so on in the end the boxed parts have to be stacked on a pallet. Normally there are different designers to do the design of this machine they have to do their collaboration on site in one department. Maybe there are different sites where the designers are located. Maybe the stacking Assembly will be created in Berlin and the production line is in the US. Also we can imagine that there are external suppliers who support us in doing the design. He has also to collaborate with the design team in Germany and in the US. After the design somebody has to install that machine at the customer the technician wants to get the latest Documentation he also has to collaborate with designer team he will provide his experience which he got during the installation. Collaboration is a normal thing which meets us every day.

Lets discuss that in detail: Our example is the packaging machine the easiest type of collaboration is doing a design in one Team. The system has to manage the security of the files. Nobody should modify parts and assemblies which are already in use by another college. Therefore we need the check in and check out system which reserves the file for us. We also have needs for the following processes in our company. We have to collaborate with the person on the shop-floor. He has to know if a document is released and ready for production or not. We support this scenario with Vault Workgroup

This scenario can also be carried to our next scenario a Multisite collaboration. For sure we have the same needs as we have heard before in addition we need to expand the collaboration scenario to China, India and other countries where we often find a shop-floor. Its important to share the data with those sites. They must have fast and easy access to the latest documents. Also they often have to do small modifications on the design directly on their site. Its important to provide these changes in the whole company. Vault Collaboration and Vault Manufacturing support this.

Normally there are a lot of Non-Cad-Users in a company. These people are involved in the complete product lifecycle. There for its quite normal that these people also need access to the company data. The collaboration looks like this: they have read only access to all relevant data in the company but does it make sense to share ALL data with them? From our point of view a process engineer or a person in the shop-floor should only get access to released data. The data which is work in progress does not have any interest for them because they are not allowed to manufacture not released data. The way of this collaboration can be realized by the Vault Web Client. It is available and automatically included in Vault Collaboration and Vault Manufacturing. No additional Licenses are needed for it.

Let see, how the Web client looks like and which are the possibilities it has for the collaboration:

Also from interest are ERP Systems. Nearly every company has an ERP System like SAP. Its quite normal that the design BOM will be transferred to an ERP System to finish the manufacturing BOM. There is an need to have a collaboration between the Data Management and the ERP System. This can be realized with our SAP Connector or with a custom connector. There is also a scenario to provide the Design Data to following company processes. Think on flame cutting. The flame cutting machine needs DXF Data to cut out the geometry. So you have to provide the data. For example this could be realized with our SharePoint integration which is included in Vault Collaboration and Vault Manufacturing.

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And now we are on our Main Topic for today collaboration with External Suppliers. The challenge here is that the workflow has to be secure and easy to use. Not every company has a CAD Administrator this job is often done by the normal CAD user. This user has to manage all the DATA export and import. But there are additional requirements: The workflow should allow to do updates on the Design. This should be possible in both directions. The customer could change his design during the development of the machine and also the external supplier will send different states of his design to double-check if he develops his design into the right direction.

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Are there any questions at this time ? So lets dive in the External collaboration

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Weve heard some of the challenges to the Workflow. It should be easy to use because a normal CAD user should be able to handle the workflow. The Workflow should support the user to provide the data. For sure you can copy file by file but this costs a lot of time and money. If I have the data It should be easy to provide them maybe by email. The supplier would like to have a simple way to import the data. And he would like to be sure that the data which he got from the purchaser can not be modified.

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We have just more challenges: The customer developed this kind of machines for a long time he has a deep know how in doing this this know how is the main capital. A customer will feel much more comfortable if he could keep that know how for himself. The geometry he wants to share with others should be only the bounding geometry or a simplified design. Also the customer would love it to minimize the number of files he has to provide. Every additional file he has to sent out is a loss of knowledge. To save costs its important to have an easy update scenario. Remember: time is money. If the import of the data takes 1h the supplier will sent you a bill for this time.

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If we brake down the possible and useful solutions youll see 2 practical solutions: The direct connection via VPN and A manually process to provide the exported data which is supported by your DM system.

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The purchaser: Create an assembly within this assembly a frame should be designed this should be done through the external supplier The purchaser dont want to share all data with the external. He just want give him only the design envelope KLICK This associative envelope (Shrink wrap Inventor 2010!!) will be passed to the external e.g. via email KLICK The envelope couldnt be modified by the external and so ensure the process. The envelope will be imported by the external into his Vault. In order to replace / update the envelope later, the envelop will be placed into an assembly in 0,0,0. In this assembly we will create a sub-assembly in which the real design (the frame) will be made. We have a completed design task. In addition this make the data exchange and later the import at the purchaser easier. KLICK The external can now create the frame KLICK The frame will be sent to the purchaser via DVD, email, FTP or Streamline The purchaser can insert the frame gotten from the external and place it at 0,0,0 or define some dependencies.

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What if the purchaser makes some changes on his design during the design process and these changes influence the external? - KLICK Because the frame is already in the assembly, you cannot just send the external the associative envelope already created the frame would be also included in the envelope! There are two possibilities: Possibility 1: the purchaser deletes the frame from his assembly and update the envelope. The envelope will be sent to the external. The external must overwrite the old file in his working folder and then update the assembly. Dependencies wont be lost. Possibility 2: The purchaser defines a new level of detail where the frame from the external is hidden. Then create a copy of the existing envelope. This copy is still associative to the initial assembly. In the copied assembly edit the derived component and use the new created LOD. The result is an associative model WITHOUT frame. KLICK

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The design envelope will be available to the external. The external opens his design and replaces the old envelope by the new one. KLICK Also here we dont loose the dependencies because the placement is at 0,0,0. The external can now modify his design KLICK At the end the external sends the modified design to the purchaser.

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Here I want to give some benefits and things you should think about: I am sure you never had the problem that your Client changed his design very often and after several changes you started where youve once began. And in the end you had to fight for getting your money. This workflow allows you to reproduce what youve done and which version of your design was delivered. Vault helps you to do this documentation nearly automatic. As you already know you can make Backups from your existing Vault Database if a Client provides you a Supplier-Vault-Database-Backup you can easily restore that. But be sure that you detached all existing Databases on the ADMS Console before you do the Restore.

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Here I want to give some benefits and things you should think about: I am sure you never had the problem that your Client changed his design very often and after several changes you started where youve once began. And in the end you had to fight for getting your money. This workflow allows you to reproduce what youve done and which version of your design was delivered. Vault helps you to do this documentation nearly automatic. As you already know you can make Backups from your existing Vault Database if a Client provides you a Supplier-Vault-Database-Backup you can easily restore that. But be sure that you detached all existing Databases on the ADMS Console before you do the Restore.

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Lets summarize what weve got seen: With the presented scenario we have an easy to use possibility to exchange data between different Vaults. Once the task is set up in the Task Scheduler it can be re-used all the time for this specific Workspace. With Vault and the Pack & Go functionality its easy to export data out of Vault and provide them to other persons. You can save the data or directly send them by email, using Autodesk Streamline, an FTP server or what ever. Combining this with the Inventor-Shrink-Wrap functionality its as easy as it never was before to share an envelop-design with external suppliers. And you can protect your know how. There is no further interaction needed for the data import. Just start the Task Scheduler its the simplest way to import secure data. After the import process youll get a detailed report so you can easily see if there is a failure. To secure the process you can define lifecycles to document your design progress. As I said the Inventor Shrink Wrap function make your know how safe. Using the different options provides just the boundary geometry. The workflow showed also that the client has to export only one File its the absolute minimum! And this file is Associative! That provides the possibility to have a bidirectional interaction in the Design. The Client can easily provide his changes to the supplier and the supplier can easily exchange the envelop without destroying constraints.

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