Managing CATIA Catalogs in ENOVIA SmarTeam requires some specific configurations and there are defined methodologies for working with standard part data. View this presentation to learn the basics of setting up CATIA Catalogs in ENOVIA SmarTeam.
How to Configure Standard Components Shared Directory for Multi-CAD All standard libraries should be saved on the specific shared directory for each CAD. For example: <shared_directory>CATIA Catalog <shared_directory>Solid Edge Standard Components <shared_directory>SolidWorks Toolbox The location of the shared directory is defined in the System Configuration Editor in the key Directory_Structure.SHARED_DIR. Standard Library Management When working only with files without SmarTeam, it is hard to search for designs that have been used previously, or to have a general picture of which Standard Components are being used. There are two types of Standard Components: Company Standard Designs, defined by an designer and then promoted for standard usage. They are usually managed by the designers involved. Standard (purchase) Parts, such as nuts and bolts, are managed by a librarian and provided to all designers. The librarian provides and manages the geometry for these Standard Components.
Librarian - Responsible for managing the standard library area in the network to provide designers with access to the approved standard libraries. Librarian SmarTeam Design Express contains: A group named Librarian A user named Librarian, who is a member of this group A menu profile named Design Create, release and delete all Standard Components (documents) Modify Standard Components Manage shared directories for Standard Libraries. Librarian Operations It is the Librarian's responsibility to provide valid and unique numbering. The Standard Part number defined by the Librarian must be stored in the «nomenclature» field of CATIA (by default). In this field, you can also define the related supplier. The Standard Part number defined by the Librarian must be stored in the Item Number field in the SmarTeam profile card. Standard Components Methodology The librarian defines Standard Components and puts them in a shared directory in order to enable all designers to view and access the parts (but not modify them). This directory should be protected by operating system permissions so that the designers cannot delete them. Only a Librarian user will have full permission to this directory.
Why not used shared folders: The subsequent gridded query, column sorting, and 3D Viewer greatly eclipse the Catalog Browsers capabilities as well as performance via a database query. This also allows a standard approach to all catalogs in a MuliCADÂ environment from thew standpoint of the user as well as the Librarian who manages the catalogs.
Your Starting Point Open the R19 documentation Select Methodology Guides Select SmarTeam Design Express for Multi-CAD Methodology Guide
Setup Document parameters and configure SmarTeam as illustrated
Create a folder at the root of an available drive. For this example, I am using E:SmCatalog Setup Catalog parameters as illustrated below. Note that you may use any specific location that is convenient to bulk load from for the “Resolved Family Components” folder.
Since the catalog is going into SmarTeam in a future step, just save it in a convenient spot
From the SmarTeam menu, we now Bulk Load these parts into the system. Note that they will be saved as Standard parts due to the settings in Step 01 and 02
Different Opinions at this stage: The Project can be left blank; no need to organize by a specific project. Or a Project can be defined Company Standards Standard Bolt Choose Save. Note that the class should be defaulted to Standard per our prior settings.
Status: CATParts are saved into SmarTeam but not checked in Catalog is neither
Open the catalog, we now do a SmarTeam > Save with focus on the Catalog itself. In the example below I link it to the Company Standards project and specific folder as a Librarian may do to hierarchically organize the catalogs. This is purely optional as queries will be used for daily catalog access.
To verify the operations, choose Smarteam > Show Profile Card to display the catalog record. Right-click in the browser windows and choose Tree Properties and set as illustrated. The profile card should now look similar to the following. Note that the system has created the single generic part in the Part class and it is linked to it’s associated design table in the Document class.
In this example we utilize the power of queries to locate categories of the catalog and then select Smarteam> Assembly Management> Insert Component We can then dbl-click the appropriate sub-catalog from the queries. The appropriate component can be dbl-clicked and added to the assembly or multiple components can be selected and OK can be used to add it to the assembly. This same method of catalog access can also be utilized for component replacement by using SmarTeam> Assembly Management> Replace Component
This process is identical to Inserting a Standard Part from Catalog except that the user performs a search in the Standard class in SmarTeam.