Why would you not use planes?

I am completely dumbfounded by this. I was told by my supervisor that I'm not allowed to use planes and/or other parts to control the sizes of my models. I have to hard code each dimension for every single part in every model. Nothing can be driven. So now, any time that I have to make a change to a model I have to make that change to each and every single part that is affected by the change MANUALLY.

I had built a fairly complex model and had the width, length and height all driven by three planes because I knew something would need to be adjusted. Everything was tested and it worked beautifully. When the approvals came back, a change was needed as well as another variation. The dimensional change would have taken maybe 5 minutes. With pack and go, the variation would have taken maybe a half hour. Someone else had to take over because I was on a bigger project, and because he couldn't understand, and wouldn't ask questions, he's spent the last two weeks destroying the model so that nothing is driven.

Is anyone else modeling like this? Am I the only one who thinks this is just completely absurd and inefficient?

And what reason was given for NOT using planes and hard coding instead? Is management aware of the inefficiency of this approach? Is it that they have money to burn?

Let me guess. The supervisor in this case has been with the company since the dawn of creation?

I really hope you're sitting down for this one, ReMark.

The reason I was given is because they don't use imaginary planes to build the products in the shop.

I really hope you're sitting down for this one, ReMark.

 

The reason I was given is because they don't use imaginary planes to build the products in the shop.

Great! Mountain Dew just spurted from my nose! Thanks a bunch. Please excuse me momentarily while I go off in the corner and laugh myself silly.:lol:

The reason I was given is because they don't use imaginary planes to build the products in the shop.

What an asinine reason, if it can can even be labeled as a "reason", which it really can't. Why do people/managers/supervisors think they can micromanage technology departments in this manner? Let the team flourish. Use every ounce of resource, trick, ace in the hole you can as far as I'm concerned. Good grief... I feel your pain.

Revit is fully parametric. You can opt out of using planes, but then you'd be cutting yourself at the knees and converting back to AutoCAD, basically. A CAD world without planes is a very dark CAD world, one I do not want any part of.

It's pretty darn tough to argue with advanced logical thinking like that SuperCAD.

Yeah, so now my speed and efficiency has been crippled and I'm slowed down to a crawl because they don't want to train people on how to do it a better way.

You could tell them that they don't use arrogant pricks in the shop either, that the company should probably eliminate all of those from the management.

Yeah, so now my speed and efficiency has been crippled and I'm slowed down to a crawl because they don't want to train people on how to do it a better way.

I'd hang myself with a corded mouse. Oh wait, mine's wireless. Never mind.

Wow! That's absurd. Companies pay me to come in and make their modeling more efficient. I've never had one say "you know what, why don't we take it back a notch here cause we are doing too good". Does your company bot operate on money?

I've done my fair share of complex equations, design tables and drive works to help automate people. I truly am sorry for the situation you are in. The sad thing is usually its quicker to model efficiently for updates anyways.

They won't use weldments either. All we do is make things out of steel tube and pipe. I am forbidden from using weldments.

What's so evil about weldments? It's not like they haven't been tested.

They don't understand how to do 3D sketches.

Didn't you just leave a job for a better opportunity? Have you basically traded one poop sandwich for another?

I think SuperCAD just went down the rabbit hole.

This still is a better job, trust me. This is a classic case of not staying up to date on the latest releases or learning how to use new tools, and then just doing the same thing for so long that they don't want to do it differently.

The problem is that no one here knows how to read through a history tree to find out how something is built. The default mentality when a change is needed is to start opening parts and change the dimensions. I need to educate them, but I'm getting a lot of push back now. After a few more months, I think I'm going to talk with my supervisor and really push for change. They haven't even scratched the surface of what SolidWorks can do. They just don't know how much they don't know.... Yet.

Plus they don't know how to isolate weldments in a drawing. I have a huge task ahead of me in educating them.

Your supervisior is obviously a clueless idiot!

I've never heard of anything so ridiculous.

Sh*t for brains.

If you need validation bring me in on a web meeting with your supervisor. I literally just did a meeting with a company that makes snow plows. Showing them how to make their weldments more efficient and how to make use of Costing. You can do so much with a master-model weldment these days that its very counter productive not to!

For example with flat plates, if you make them sheet metal you can export an entire flat pattern folder(assuming you are at least using 2014) to dxf as one file or individuals very quick.

Thanks, Matt. I'll keep you in mind. I've been trying to explain the master model technique, but so far if anything requires more than two seconds of thought they won't want to do it. They are all institutionalized and are just too used to the way they've always done things.