Breakout Session 2010 – 10 CAD Administration Tips

At Matt Lombard’s 10 CAD Administration Tips breakout session, he covered ten things to consider when administrating SolidWorks.

– Unique file names. Don’t use “block”, “base”, etc as file names. One thing of interest that he highlighted was the fact that when opening a file, SolidWorks looks in 12 places before it looks in the place you last saved it.

– Think about a revision scheme. Don’t save the revision in the file name and don’t use configurations for revisions.

– Select good hardware. Don’t go too cheap, but also don’t just buy what is expensive. Research hardware to find what best suits your needs.

– Clean installs of SolidWorks to reduce the chance of legacy settings affecting your install.

– System Maintenance.

– Reuse and share data.

– Establish standards and best practices. Modelling practices should be tailored to a specific group of users.

– Proper and complete training of users.

– Upgrade/update plan.

– Toolbox (no strong recommendations as to using it or not).

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper