Part 1 – Design Engineering

In the coming months, I will release regular blog posts about Autodesk® Fusion 360® Manage with Upchain. Each post will cover a different topic and introduce you to the functionality of Fusion 360 Manage with Upchain.

So, what is Fusion 360 Manage with Upchain? Fusion 360 Manage with Upchain is a fully featured, cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) solution. Fusion 360 with Upchain connects your people, processes, and data to get your products to market faster. Cloud data and process management help you collaborate better and become more efficient. You can track and meet deadlines to speed up product development and have a single source of truth for all your latest product data.

Fusion 360 with Upchain offers modular capabilities, which means users can choose to adopt any functionalities or integrations within the system when it makes sense for the team without learning a completely new environment.

Today I will discuss some modular capabilities that may relate to your design engineering department.

Item Numbering

In this module, you can create and manage unique naming conventions to track items effectively throughout their product lifecycle. Every item in Upchain is assigned a unique item number. Although it is called an "item number," it may also contain alphabets and delimiters. The item number is based on an item numbering rule. Upchain's default item numbering rule is 10000000-XX-XX-Item Name. Item numbers can be individualized by item type, such as Purchased, Manufactured, Phantom, CAD Assembly, etc.

Tenant Administrators can add a custom item numbering rule, view item numbering rules, edit item numbering rules, duplicate an existing rule, and deactivate a custom item numbering rule.

Item Attributes

In this module, you can create and manage custom item attributes and link them to various CAD software, allowing for efficient cBOM importing, managing, and exporting data. Common attributes include Item Descriptions, Major Revision, Minor Revision, Manufacturer, Material, ERP Item Number, etc.

Tenant Administrators can add custom item attributes, edit item attributes, include attributes in search systems, include attributes in workflows, and link item attributes to CAD documents.

Categorization

In this module, you can create and manage categories and their attributes for clean item classification and more powerful item search capability. Categories can be based on component types, such as fasteners, bearings, and gears, or they can be based on product types, such as made-to-order or standard product lines. Categorization can be a combination of just about anything your company needs.

Document Numbering

Documents associated with projects and items are assigned a document number. The document number follows either the default or a custom document numbering rule. Upchain's default document numbering rule is 20000000-XX-documentName, where XX is the default major version number.

Custom document numbering rules can be created to match your current engineering numbering schemes, such as file names, part numbers, or file descriptions.

Tenant Administrators can create custom document numbering rules, view and edit existing document numbering rules, base a new rule on an existing rule, and deactivate existing document numbering rules if no longer needed.

Document Attributes

Create and manage custom document attributes – add picklists, hyperlinks, dates, etc., for superior document handling. These attributes appear on a document's details view and can be used to provide more information about the document's contents without having to download and open the document.

Picklists

A picklist is a list of preset values. Many picklists have been pre-configured and appear in various locations throughout the application. These include many primitive drop-down options, item types, and Gantt chart task types. Picklists are available for custom attributes that appear on items, documents, tasks, and business processes. Configuring picklist values ahead of time ensures that your users do not accidentally enter incorrect or irrelevant values.

Exchange Rates

Any business with divisions in other countries or works with suppliers or customers in other countries understands the importance of currency exchange. Multiple exchange rates can be added and managed for calculating costs from the default currency.

Project Types

Projects are used to organize and manage the effort and data related to your product's lifecycle. They allow you to easily track statuses and due dates while having all your information in one place. Having different project types will enable you to manage various types of work and create separate workflows for each project type to manage its specific lifecycle. Several project types are built in, or you can create your own custom project type. To save time and effort with future projects, project templates can be created and adapted for each of your future projects.

Summary

This quick overview was intended to highlight some of the modules that may relate to your engineering department. I hope you found the information helpful. Stay tuned… Part two will discuss more built-in modules related to common business processes.