Introduction and Upchain core concepts

00:05

In this video, we'll introduce you to what Upchain is and how the mechanical CAD plugins can benefit your organization.

00:13

So, let's take a look.

00:16

What is Upchain?

00:18

Upchain is a cloud-based product life-cycle management system,

00:22

where you and your team can collaborate with each other seamlessly across the value chain, while still working within the tools everyone is used to.

00:33

With Upchain, you can easily access and edit critical product data through various plugins,

00:39

manage life-cycles and changes through workflows,

00:43

identify any product issues using dashboards and reports, track your assigned workload,

00:50

and collaborate with the relevant teams.

00:53

This means that innovation is at the forefront of your projects, because you're not trying to keep track of data across multiple platforms.

01:02

So, what is the mechanical CAD plugin, and what is it for?

01:06

Our CAD plugin enables you to work with CAD data without having to leave your everyday workspace.

01:13

The plugin sits alongside your CAD software...

01:18

And is the bridge between it and Upchain so that you can access up to date files and documents from the cloud and push your changes back to Upchain,

01:26

all without having to leave your CAD system.

01:32

As a CAD user, the mechanical CAD plugin is your access point to Upchain,

01:37

which provides you and subsequently your team with many benefits, including CAD file changes are pushed to all team members in real-time.

01:46

This means that no 1 is wondering what stage the design is at.

01:53

Check-in and out functionality enables many teaming to work within the same assembly on different components at the same time,

01:60

without the risk of duplicated work.

02:04

Upchain is that single source of truth for your team's data, which means no more searching for files in shared drives or emails.

02:11

You can find what you need from the plugin.

02:16

Changes are handled in a controlled environment,

02:19

and a fully traceable record of file changes is maintained so you can always look back on how a design has changed or roll back to a previous version.

02:31

Good designs or commonly used items can be easily reused, saving you time from having to start from scratch on every new project.

02:40

Upchain is your organization's single source of truth for the product data.

02:44

No more shared drives or email files, anyone within your organization may access the same up to date product data anywhere and at any time.

02:59

You may have noticed the different icons, representing different CAD systems in previous slides.

03:04

Upchain can support the following CAD systems.

03:09

AutoCAD, Catia, Inventor, PTC Creo, Siemens NX, and SolidWorks.

03:16

And we also offer the generic plugin to enable your non-CAD users to import,

03:21

and work with different CAD files in Upchain without the need for a CAD license.

03:26

This is especially useful for your non-CAD users who may still need to interact with the items and CAD files.

03:34

You should now have an understanding of what Upchain is, what the mechanical CAD plugin is for, and how it can benefit you.

03:44

Continue working through the mechanical CAD courses to learn more.

00:05

In this video, we'll introduce you to the key concepts when working in Upchain with the mechanical CAD plugin.

00:11

Familiarize yourself with these terms, but don't worry about mastering them just now.

00:15

We'll revisit many of these core concepts in greater detail in later courses as we work through different use cases.

00:23

So, let's take a look.

00:27

At the heart of Upchain is the project.

00:30

Projects are used to organize and manage the effort and data related to your product's life cycle within Upchain.

00:38

Projects may be used in a variety of ways.

00:40

Generally, a project contains one or multiple end item products to be delivered to a customer.

00:46

But there are other uses for projects, such as a standard library of parts, or a standard library of documents.

00:53

Regardless of project type, a project can include things like team members, a project plan,

01:00

bill of materials, supporting documents, and business processes that manage the change history of various objects.

01:09

Projects enable you to track the status updates and due dates while having all the information about a product in one centralized location.

01:18

As a general rule, whenever you access or edit data in Upchain, you do so in the context of a project.

01:30

One of the main components of a project is the bill of materials.

01:33

A bill of materials, lists all of the assemblies, sub-assemblies, parts,

01:39

and raw materials needed to produce one unit of a finished product.

01:43

Each product has its own bill of materials.

01:47

Everywhere you can see the bill of materials in Upchain, it shows the parent child relationships between each item,

01:53

in an indented hierarchical structure so that all users can clearly see how the structure is laid out and organized.

01:60

This structure is primarily driven by the design.

02:10

Now, a bill of materials contains items. So, what is an item?

02:15

An item represents one object in your design, one level in that bill of materials.

02:20

So, that means it can be a part, an assembly, a sub-assembly or an end item, which is the very top level with no parent above it.

02:30

So, you can think of an item like a box in Upchain.

02:35

Or a package, it contains all of the data associated with one object in a product design.

02:41

Including attributes, which is your metadata, CAD models,

02:45

and drawings, non-CAD documentation, translations, visualizations, and markups.

02:57

Each item in Upchain is assigned a unique item number.

03:01

The format of the item number can be configured by your tenant administrator to include things like text,

03:06

delimiters and sequence numbers, and can also depend on the item type.

03:11

And that way, you can use the item number to help identify what that item is.

03:16

But the key thing to remember is that once the item number is assigned to an item, it cannot be changed and reused by another item.

03:24

It also cannot be deleted so that you can try again. Once it's taken, it's taken.

03:30

An item is identified by its item data model, which is made up of four parts,

03:33

the item number as discussed, a major revision, a minor revision, and a version.

03:41

The major revision out of the box is always two characters, and the minor revision is always two numbers.

03:48

The version is always an integer, starting at 0.

03:55

The item is also characterized by its attributes which is the metadata and can include things like the material,

04:02

the manufacturer that produces it, and the item number.

04:06

Rather the manufacturer's item number for that.

04:13

Now the item can go through many steps in its life cycle, but an item always begins in a development state.

04:21

It remains in the state throughout the initial development stage, and you can see for brand new items,

04:27

the major revision is XX, the minor revision is also XX, and the version is 1.

04:36

This item contains all of the incremental design changes on the CAD model that's inside it,

04:41

and you can make as many of these incremental changes as needed.

04:49

Once you consider your item to be finished, ready to go, it is,

04:54

needs to be sent to a change request to move the item to a released state.

04:59

This increments the major revision up to AA and the minor revision to 00.

05:05

This is how it is out of the box. The version is also set to 0 to indicate that the item is released.

05:12

The CAD file inside that released item is also incremented up to the next number,

05:18

just to keep it separate from all of the incremental design changes contained in the development item.

05:25

If further changes are needed again, the item must be revised to put it back into a development state.

05:33

So, the major and the minor revision notice have not changed. They stay at their level that they were just put into.

05:41

But the version is incremented up to version 1 to indicate that the item is now back into development.

05:48

And now the item is back into development.

05:51

You can make any further changes needed to this item to its CAD model,

05:56

to its drawings, documentation, attributes, whatever is required at this stage.

06:02

And then once those changes have been made, it must be sent to another change request to release it again.

06:12

Now during the second release, in our example,

06:16

this is where we have to decide whether the change we made was a major revision or a minor revision,

06:23

and this will be down to your organization's decision on what the differences are between the two.

06:31

If we were to choose a major revision, then that would increment the major revision part up to AB, and the minor revision would stay as it was.

06:41

If we were to choose minor revision, that increments the minor revision up to 01, and the major revision would stay at where it was.

06:49

In both cases, the version is always set to 0 again to indicate that the item is released.

06:56

So, this process of releasing and revising,

07:00

and releasing and revising can continue as many times as needed until a final product is found.

07:10

So, you may be a bit confused about some of these concepts, but don't worry.

07:14

As you begin to work with Upchain and the CAD plugin and work with items and CAD files, you'll become more familiar with what these terms mean.

07:23

So, continue working through the mechanical CAD courses to learn more.