Chapter 21. Introducing SolidWorks Workgroup PDM

SolidWorks Workgroup PDM is the product formerly known as PDMWorks by DesignSource. SolidWorks purchased the software several years ago as an add-in, easy-to-use file management system. The administration overhead on Workgroup PDM is low and it is reasonably flexible; but the main intent for this software was that it be easy to use and easy to administer, and available with the Professional and Premium levels of the SolidWorks software.

SolidWorks Corporation and its parent Dassault Systemmes offer additional enterprise level PDM software named SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and SmarTeam, respectively. These are available for additional cost and are not bundled in to any of the SolidWorks software bundles. This book does not cover either of these products.

PDM stands for Product Data Management. For most purposes, this simply means file management with revision management capabilities. The reason it is so important is that with SolidWorks, and in fact with any CAD system that uses relationships between distinctly separate files, maintaining the relationships manually is difficult but critical. PDM software applies most of the discipline you would use in manual file management, while removing the requirement for you to remember to do the right thing. The software ensures that you do the right thing; it remembers for ...

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