Import BOM data from CAD

I assume this topic has been covered before, but a search of the keywords didn't get me anywhere.

Our engineering department generally builds a bill of material in the cad programs before we get to the point where we enter the BOM in ERP. Adding each item to a work order in the manufacturing window is very tedious, so I'd like to find or create an easier way.

I don't really have a preconceived notion of how this would work. If there is an existing import somewhere, that's great. I am also willing to write an application that would directly access an ERP database from withing the CAD application. I assume there is a solution somewhere between those options as well.

Using VBA and Visual Studio, I have been able to write an application for our CAD application that queries the parts database and writes values to the cad file's properties. I'm guessing something similar for BOMs would be much more complicated. It looks like the manufacturing window is pulling from various databases when dispalying a workorder. Is that correct?

Does anyone have any suggestions where to start?

We are running Visual Enterprise 6.5.2.

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Comments

Legacy Contributor

Hey Kevin,

Visual has a licensed component called DesignLink that allows for a user to import from AutoCAD. This doesn't do you much good if you are using something else though. What it does make available is the "import from drawing button" in the MFG Window. After selecting an operation, you can click that button to load an XML file like this:

LSAXML
CAD~AutoCAD Extentions Export File~

1
MYPARTID1
11
EA

2
MYPARTID2
7
IN

MYASSEMBLY

(sorry, no indenting)

The material will then be added to the operation. This is how we imported all of our BOM's during implementation.

Sounds like you do some programming, so making a app to convert an exported file from your design application to the Visual import format shouldn't be too hard. If the Design app allows it, some VBA scripting may be able to dump the drawing parts to file for you.

The backdoor way would be to populate the requirements table with the parts, but make sure that you understand the relationship between the workorder, operation, and requirments tables before going down that road (I have not done this...).

Hope that helps a little.
-Alex

Legacy Contributor

There is also a utility that is apparently designed to do EXACTLY what you are describing called the Data Import Utility. It's documented in Volume 4 chapter 11 of our Visual Manufacturing document set. It's part of the system. I've had my eyes on it for a while but haven't had the time to do any testing.

We're running VM 6.5.4, I hope you have it too in your version.

Also, as Alex indicated, there are programming interfaces. In your version the FREE ActiveX tools would support what you want to do. They are documented in presentations about macro programming that would be available from either the solution center or you could open an incident to ask for them. In our version, the upgraded versions that will continue to work cost some money.

Also check out the VMIUG-TEC group on Yahoo, you would need to join through this INFOR connection. In the Attachments library are some very good presentations and collections of information and tools.

Dorothy

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