Adding Current Date to a drawing

[srieger]

There is a product from Etrage that is a batch plotting solution for Windchill or Intralink. I has the capability to add a watermark automatically to add whatever you want. Including printed date. I would have to check but it may also be able to add a date to a corner or edge.


We use this product and I highly recommend it if you want to print lots of drawings from Windchill or intralink. It is highly configurable. We export a list of drawings from our MRP system and it imports into the software and prints everything that is valid in the list. User access permissions are used of course.

 

[COBrien57]

In 1979 I was told that the date in the title block should be the date you started the drawing, not finished it. The reason being that the drawing was a legal document. Being a legal document it could be used in a patent dispute. This info came from the General Electric corporate legal office in New York. Since that time I have noticed an increasingly greater degradation of drawing quality throughout the industry. CAD packages have noticeablely different drafting packages. They range from good to seriously lacking. Many people do what they feel looks better than to follow the
established guidelines. Perhaps we should start training people again,
instead just letting things happen and relying on CAD packages done by people without proper documentation training. It might go a long way toward global
competition.
On the subject at hand, I like the watermark alternative.

 

[oscarp]

The last thing I'm looking for is to have/create any kind of dispute. Nowadays, at least in the company I work in, quality system relies completely in PLM (Windchill). There you have all the information you should need at any moment and for any (legal or not) reason.


Some of the leading companies are aiming their efforts to a system without drawings (as Toyota, as far as I've heard). What they are looking for is to have a cad part with 3D dimensions so just one file has all the information.


Apart from that, you may have the date when the drawing was begun, but you should have also a way of identifying the last version of a drawing. One of the ways is with the printed date, not legally binding but more useful in everyday work.


That's my modest opinion.

 

[COBrien57]

That's part of the reason I stated that the info was from 1979. As a survivor of a patent dispute, the court was more inclined to take the dates off of the drawing than they were to take the dates from a computer file. Apparently they believe computer records can be easily altered. While the PLM system are a good method of controlling documents, training people as to why certain things, are done a certain way, goes a lot further. The release date of the drawing can be determined by the dates in the signature block. Last date is the issued date. The rest is done by the revision history. Proper training will teach this to the drawing creators. Yes it takes time. Yes it takes money. No place worth going to is cheap.