EPDM maintain your Best Practices

Several years ago I wrote a presentation “How to write a best practice document”. I have given this presentation to several user groups and even twice at SOLIDWORKS World. In the presentation, I discuss different mediums to use when writing and maintaining the document. Word processors, wikis and Docbook are the three main tools I recommend.

A few days ago a customer asked if SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM would be a good tool to store his best practice document. Blew me away. I had never thought of a PDM being Best Practice repository, but it is perfect!

For a best practice document to be successful:

• Users need to be able to quickly find the information they are looking for
• It has to be easy to maintain and keep current

Things PDM does for you!

What if…instead of creating a big long document that will be hard to read, navigate and maintain, you created a bunch of little .avi files demonstrating your best practices? [I will not do the voice overs, stop asking.] To make finding them easier, create a special “Best Practice” datacard and place it in your best practices sub directory.

Don’t forget that you can watch avi files through the preview tab…(sound works too)

Obviously it doesn’t have to be only movie files, pictures (they really are worth a few hundred words), machining charts, internal memos, spreadsheets…can all be categorized in your datacard for quick access.