How/where does your team organize parts in Inventor? (i.e. Vault, Windchill, etc.)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by joek

I have all our CAD files on my flash drive, and backed up at home on our external, but we might have to use vault this next year

This type of system just won't work if you have others who want to design, not to mention you could lose that flashdrive and even with daily backups lose a few hours of work.

[joek]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

This type of system just won't work if you have others who want to design, not to mention you could lose that flashdrive and even with daily backups lose a few hours of work.

another reason for us to switch to windchill or vault, lol

[hallk]

I would suggest not primarily saving everything on a jump drive or external hard drive because those are easily lost and it is easy for someone to make undocumented changes accidentally. In addition to backing up your designs in more then one location you should also make sure that you print the drawing. I would recommend putting all current drawings in one location and then moving then to an old folder once updated.

[joek]

we will be using the autodesk group thingy

[kinghashbrown]

the way my team keeps track of things is there is a "master" computer, operated by the lead designer, who does all big changes to the robot. and anyone that works on the model copies the latest files off of the master computer, and then works based on those files (writing down all changes to what files). At the end of the work session this person must return to the lead designer and inform him/her of what subassemblies he/she changed. Two hard copies are made of each drawing, and I've kept two backups one on my external hard drive at home, and a flash drive i carry.

with this system only one computer can really work on a single subassembly. It also requires careful overseeing, or work can be lost.

this system has its flaws. but since its always been a small team of students and a few mentors that do the design it's manageable.