Generating Parts Lists

I work in steel fabrication and we use autocad for all our drawings.

I am looking to generate one parts list per job. A job may consist of one or many drawings. I have seen these lists when generated through strucad but i am wondering can it be done through autocad or any of the add ons that you can buy? Thanks for your help.

Steel fabrication. Then we're talking about beams, channels, tube shapes, clips, etc. Do your objects have attributes?

They don't have attributes. We very rarely do repetitive work so most drawings are started from scratch.

Then are you using bubbles? How are the parts called out?

At present, we just label the parts and manually fill in a table on our drawing template. This is slow and prone to errors.

No chance moving over to a steel detailing package is there?

I think the costs might be an issue, are these expensive?

Yes they can be. What information will be shown in the BOM?

To do it 'on the cheap' would require some work on your part. Blocks would have to created that contained attributes. A LISP program would extract the information from the blocks to create the BOM. Your profile says AutoCAD 2004. Is that correct? How many drafters/detailers are there? Is everyone using the same software?

I ran across a shareware program called BOMv4 that might work for you. Not sure what the cost is.

We have 2 draftsmen using autocad 2008. I'll check out that program and see if it suits, Thanks. Information on the BOM will be item no, qty, description etc.

2008? Then you're already part way there. Do you use AutoCAD Tables? Data can be extracted from the drawing and used to populate the table, it can then be linked to a spreadsheet or a database. In 2008 this link is two way. Change the information in AutoCAD or in Excel, for example, and it will be changed in the other program as well. AutoCAD can also count blocks using the Express Tools BCount command.

I'll get the lads to try using the autocad tables and see if it works for us. Cheers

Tables in AC 2008 were given some new advanced features which I'm sure will be of great benefit to your firm. However, I strongly urge you to also consider the use of blocks with attributes. Good luck. Let us know how you make out.

I also am in the SteelFabrication industry. What I do is draw out what I call "OverView" which can be sent over to our welding-foreman to put the project together. In the overview.dwg file I drag-n-drop an Excel spreadsheet that has the individual part-name/number, a basic description, qty required. If I need to make changes to the BOM, I make it in Excel and (if I did everything right) it auto-magically updates it in my overview.dwg file

have you looked at Autodesk Utility Design?

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=734483

It seems to work similar to what ReMark is describing. Blocks have "intelligent" attributes, and it can generate parts lists and cost estimates. I believe it runs on top of Map3D.

im in a similar position trying to change our current way, where we do to do it manual

we need to need have number of items, mass, material, and what it is eg 75 * 6 EA * 700 LG,

tho this will be for about 40 drafter's to use