Implementing Autodesk Inventor in Your Company

MA405-1

Dan MilesINCAT Autodesk Practice Manager

Email = dmiles@incat.com

Blog Site = danmiles.blogs.com

• Upfront Decisions• File and Folder Organization• Content Center and Standard Component Files• Engineering Data Folders• File Naming Standards• Inventor File iProperties Standards• Style and Standards Library• Template Files• Application Option Preferences• Project Files

Course Topics

Course Survey

Autodesk University 2007Session Evaluation

Course #: MA405-1

Course Name: Implementing Inventor

Speaker: Dan Miles

Your Badge #: ????

To me implementing means adopting new technology within a group in a repeatable and standardized way that delivers true measureable advantages.

What Does Implementing Mean?

The quotes we would like to avoid.

“If I knew what I know now, I would have done it differently from the start.”

“Everyone works differently and it is hard to share things.”

“The system is not setup for our company.”

“We are always redoing the same things over and over.”

Using the software right out of the box.

Each user using the software differently.

Not leveraging all of the functions you could.

Not streamlining common tasks

What is Not an Implementation

This class provides proven best practices for implementing Autodesk Inventor to ensure that you realize the benefits the solution offers.

Also ensure you are able to deploy the solution to a group of people or full company.

Provide a check list approach on several topics to help guide you through your implementation process.

Course Overview

• Upfront Decisions• File / Folder Organization• File Naming• Inventor File iProperties• Style and Standards Library• Template Files• Application Option Preferences• Project Files• Content Center

Elements of an Implementation

Before you begin your implementation you need to consider the following:

• Project or Product Based Company

• Drawing File Format

• File (Data) Management Method

Upfront Decisions Required

Project Focused

Project focused engineering departments and companies generally receive their work from a customer. Most of the parts and assemblies created for the project are not reused across projects.

Product Focused

Product focused engineering departments and companies have their own products that they engineer, manufacture, and bring to market. Components are generally shared across products and standard components are treated as their own.

Project or Product Based Company

Autodesk Inventor 2008 Provides You a Choose.

Inventor “IDW” Format

Inventor IDW files are native to Autodesk Inventor only and were the only drawing files until release 2008.

Inventor “DWG” Format

With release 2008 you can now create and use AutoCAD DWG files within Autodesk Inventor.

Drawing File Format

If you are just starting out I recommend using the DWG format.

Network File Folders

Standard Windows file folders is the most basic method.

Autodesk Vault / Productstream

Autodesk Vault comes with Inventor and you only need a basic server in place to get started.

Third Party Data Management Solution

Most companies choose one of these solutions if they are managing other non Autodesk files and connecting to other CAD or business systems.

File (Data) Management Method

There are several different categories of file folders you need to define:

• General Folders

• Content Center Files

• Standard Component Files

• Engineering Data Folders

File / Folder Organization

Design Data

Styles library and other required files.

Templates

Inventor startup file templates

Catalog

iFeatures and Sheetmetal Punches

Preferences

XML Application Option Files

General Folders

DEMO

Network File Folders

Content Center & Std. Components

Autodesk Vault / Productstream Environment

Content Center & Std. Components

Autodesk Vault / Productstream Workspace

Content Center & Std. Components

Option 1 – Local Folder Option 2 – Network Folder

Project Based

Engineering Data Folders

Note: All of the folder names listed are just concepts and should be replaced with meaningful names within your organization.

Product Based

Engineering Data Folders

Note: All of the folder names listed are just concepts and should be replaced with meaningful names within your organization.

DEMO

In most cases the files names follow your companies part numbering convention.

They may also contains some special characters for management of CAD only related files.

File Naming Overview

Sequential Generic Part Numbering

This is for product based companies or companies with design reuse across projects in most cases.

File Naming

Example: C-1034.ipt

Project Based Sequential Part Numbering

Example on how a project based part number convention can be implemented.

File Naming

Example: 4560-001366.ipt

Weldment Sub Component Example

Example on how you might name a sub component of a weldment that is not assigned a part number.

File Naming

Example: 456-0234-01.ipt

Inventor file iProperties are property fields attached to a file. This is one of the most important items to ensure that everyone is following the same standards and filling them in on each file.

iProperties are used for the following items:

• Parts Lists• Title Blocks• Sketch Symbols / Blocks• Balloons• Data Management File Searching

Inventor File iProperties

• Use as many of the standard default iProperties.

• Create custom iProperties as needed.

• Add custom iProperties to your based template files.

• Avoid using drawing iProperties for generic component information like description or part number.

• If a component is reused across projects only store generic information on the model and have the project information within the drawing files.

Inventor File iProperty Guidelines

DEMO

Style libraries have two main purposes:

Part and Assembly Information

Centralize all of the shared information for parts and assembly files like colors, lighting, and materials. These items are connected live to the central mapped style library location.

Drawing Information

Manage and control all of the drawing (IDW and DWG) environment settings like layers, dimension styles, text styles, and etc.. These items are not connected live to the central mapped library and instead need to be manually updated within the files.

Style and Standard Library

I recommend starting your own empty style library before you start creating your file templates.

Style and Standard Library

You can then populate the new library with all of the item you would like from the standard out of box library. I recommend only adding the standard colors, materials, and lighting items from the out of box library.

DEMO

Creating template files to be used within Inventor is one of my pet peeves. I take creating these files very serious and take great care in creating the perfect template. These are the files that start all other files so they will be used thousands of times if not more over a year or two.

I also recommend that every other release of Inventor take the time and recreate your template files from scratch.

Template Files

The main item you need to configure within your part, assembly, and presentation template files are iProperties.

Also with Inventor 2008 and older your sheetmetal styles are stored within the template files so you need to preset those also.

IPT, IAM, IPN Template Files

Note: Inventor Professional may require a few additional template files.

DEMO

This is where all of the magic comes into play. Creating a good drawing template file can take some time but is well worth the investment. I recommend using the DWG file format for your custom drawing templates.

Drawing Template Files

Start with an empty file.

Creation Sequence

1. Styles and StandardsModify the text, leader, layers, and object defaults first

2. Title Block and BorderCreate border before title blockTest several text values in your title blocks

3. Sketch Symbols and BlocksCreate all required standard symbols / blocks

4. Test Everything

Drawing Template Guidelines

DEMO

The current libraries within Autodesk Inventor contain hundreds of thousands of components. In most cases a company will not use all of the available items so only a small percentage of are used.

To help increase the performance and simplify the user interface I recommend creating your own company content center library. At first the library will be empty but you can add only what you need. This also provides a foundation for adding custom content.

Content Center

Library configurations are managed through the Inventor Project Editor using the Configure Content Center Libraries command.

Project Files (Content Libraries)

Note: The fewer libraries actively searched by Content Center, the better the performance.

Project Files

DEMO

Autodesk Inventor 2008 allows you to import and export application options settings to an XML preferences files.

Store these is your “General” preferences folder.

Application Option Preferences

DEMO

THANK YOU!!!!!

Autodesk University 2007Session Evaluation

Course #: MA405-1

Course Name: Implementing Inventor

Speaker: Dan Miles

Your Badge #: ????