Connecting With Manufacturers

andrew_bennett

I'm wondering how people are using Onshape to connect their designs with manufactures. Are you sending them files or sharing them on Part Studios? Do you have a shared document for each supplier or do you share your entire design file? 

brucebartlett

Dxf export is all I am doing ATM and some sharing for visualisation. Nothing major yet, most of my bits need proper drawings, which I believe is getting very close to implementation in BETA. 

3dcad

I'm creating named views and currently take and comment screenshots of those. I'm hoping for Onshape to develop named views to be a serious competitor to traditional drawings for the cases where standard views are not needed (or are not enough).

imagineered

STEP file & PDF drawings to Toolmakers and manufacturers is the norm within Asia Pacific, hence onshape is not practical to put to use at the moment, but once the development is complete, those should be available.
Additionally, exporting to a 3D PDF is really becoming a useful method of communication outside CAD.  Many managers and clients won't have the access or know how to navigate within CAD but the 3D PDF is very useful in communicating intent in these situations.

andrew_troup

I too have exported dxfs only, to date. 

A word of warning: if you want smooth circles from some reasonably hi-res process, like laser cutting (or especially wirecut), take a close look at the dxf by zooming right in with Autocad or equivalent.

In one case, I got a polyline, a series of relatively few straight lines,  for the outer profile of a simple flange with a 300mm OD, which was modelled in a part studio with some larger parts (including one about 2200mm diameter).

Luckily it didn't matter, for the particular application.

yonatan_wolowelsky

Hey @andrew_bennett

We are thinking of building an onshare app for Jiga, where you can connect your BOM and designs directly to manufacturers.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this should look like in your opinion. feel free to shoot me an email: yonatan@jiga.io

S1mon

@yonatan_wolowelsky

You're replying to a 7 year old thread. Andrew hasn't been active on here since 2015. 

Looking at your web site, I'm super skeptical. I also spent 8.5+ years helping companies from startups to Fortune 50 get new products into production in China. Vetting and managing suppliers takes a full time staff on the ground. There are opportunities to make the process faster and cleaner, but this is not something that someone can just throw some VC money at and expect it to scale without a huge team of very specialized people.

On the other side of it, as a supplier, there are huge risks and pains because customers don't know what they're doing or what they really want/need, don't have adequate funding, and don't always pay their bills.

It's not really clear what the value add is that Jiga.io is offering.

yonatan_wolowelsky

Hey Simon,
Happy to jump on a quick call to show your the product and get your educated feedback.

I agree that it's not a simple task, but we're aiming high.