Not Revision Managed?

S1mon

I'm tempted to use "Not Revision Managed" for some CAD from external sources, especially early in development.

1. What sorts of parts/assemblies does your company mark this way?
2. What are plusses and minuses of using this feature - both from an Onshape usability perspective and a general PLM perspective?
3. What happens if I release an assembly A with subassembly B marked "Not Revision Managed" and in a later release, choose to switch B to revision managed?

nick_papageorge073

I use this for all purchased parts. Nuts/bolts type hardware from McMaster (that is not already built into OS), any purchased electronic items, etc. We do keep track of those items with a spec sheet in sharepoint, which basically is the pdf drawing from the vendor.

eric_pesty

I've started using it more, including for "intermediate" assemblies that don't get their own drawings (but maybe a view on a drawing).
It's also useful if I have a configuration of a part that I need either for a drawing or to show in a certain state (like an "open" lid/box).
Once you get used to the fact that if you release a drawing anything from the same version as the release is going to be pulled in anytime you look at/use that "thing" then it can eliminate unnecessary released items.

To answer your original question, I would not put external CAD through a release process as I like to think only things that are actually controlled in Onshape should go through the release. Even if you are assigning a revision in your ERP/PLM for these items I don't see much value in trying to replicate that in Onshape. If you do end up making modifications later (i.e. adding a hole through direct editing or whatever), then you would actually want to switch it to use the release process as you are now "driving" the revision from Onshape. It shouldn't affect anything in unexpected ways (i.e. a higher level assy that use the part would need to be updated to use the new version regardless of its "revision managed" status).

John_vd_Werff

We use 'not revision managed' for vendor components and occasionally for drawings during development that are not intended for production and we want to get rid of the 'in progress' watermark whithout making a new release.
Main benefit of using 'not revision managed' is with drawings of assemblies, all fasteners and other vendor components that are set to 'not revision manged' are automatically excluded from the release package.

So far I have not encountered a situation where we had to change the 'not revision manged' status of parts or drawings between releases.

We don't release CAD data from other sources, those come with their own set of drawings. We just import the parts for reference. Unless we decide to change the design ourselfs at which point it becomes a regular part with drawings we are in control of.