Hello Everyone -
I started this discussion so that those of us in the ECAD WGM world can get to know each other - and help us work together to be a unified voice for PTC's ECAD-related products.
I support Mentor Graphics tools for PCB design. Our current production environment includes Mentor Graphics DxDesigner and Expedition, release 7.9.3. We're also using Mentor Graphics DMS for component library management.
We also have a legacy Mentor Graphics BoardStation BSXE2006 environment running under Solaris, also with DMS.
I've integrated both of these environments into our Windchill PLM 9.1 M050 environment using Workgroup Manager for ECAD.
The first effort - for BoardStation on Solaris - was fairly painful and involved several patches from PTC in order to get it running. However, it did finally work for us, with some limitations (see below).
Getting the DX/Expedition environment to work in Workgroup Manager is a more recent effort, and took less time - but still required a patch from PTC.
I'm also working on a Windchill 10 implementation, with the new Windchill Workgroup Manager ("WWGM") for ECAD (the short story: I have a number of capabilities working, but still have issues that need to be resolved).
Some thoughts and concerns on our WGM efforts that can hopefully generate some discussion here:
- We've been unable to get DxDesigner schematic viewables to work properly (both under WC9 and WC10). PTC blames MGC's EDIF implementation - but there seems to be no solution on the horizon. We're sticking with schematic PDFs for the moment.
- In general, WGM has proven to be a "hypersensitive" environment. When it works, it works well - but a lot things have to come together correctly for it to work, and any one of them can cause it to fail.
- It's evident to me that WGM for ECAD was originally developed for the needs of specific customer sites - and if your needs also fit into that model, things can go smoothly for you. If you need something different, you may be on your own.
- Our site makes use of variant designs for handle a number of design issues (i.e., a single PCB design driving different assemblies with different BOM contents). I wish WGM had the ability to intelligently understand PCB design variants in the same way my MGC tools can.
- In general, WGM has a pretty strict view of the PCB design process, and the version relationship between created objects. This can cause problems when managing situations that occur in real-life designs.
- One of the most important things we're looking for in our ECAD/PLM integration is the Product Structure BOM. In the ECAD world, this means the existence of a component library is very important. Since we already have this data in DMS, we use the PTC Component Loader (which is a "Global Services" product, i.e. consulting) to build WT Parts and CAD Documents in Windchill, with the correct relationship.
So: What have you done in the ECAD/PLM integration world? Share your experiences!