New project, day one. Before a single sketch exists, the engineer creates folders, copies the project file from the previous job, hunts down the assembly of a comparable machine as a starting point and drags in the same frame parts as last month. Forty-five minutes later, nothing has been designed yet, but plenty has been set up.
That setup work is necessary, but it is also the same work every single time. Capture it properly once in a project template and you never start blank again: no empty folder, no empty screen, no checklist kept in someone's head. In this article we build that starting point on three levels: a ready-made folder set, a starter assembly per product type and a starter checklist of what always needs to be arranged. With a toolbox like Thundercad you can then jump through that structure at speed as well, but the profit begins with good preparation.
One boundary up front: this article stays at project level. Templates for individual documents, with pre-filled iProperties per document type, are a chapter of their own; we cover that in Templates with pre-filled iProperties: starting right is half the work.
Where those first forty-five minutes go
Tally it across a few projects and the same list appears every time:
- creating and naming folders, deviating just slightly from last time;
- copying the project file and checking the paths;
- opening an old project to see "how we did it back then";
- gathering the standard parts and purchased parts that always go in anyway;
- running through the remaining arrangements from memory.
The nastiest one is that third habit. Whoever copies an old project as a starting point takes along everything that was wrong with it: leftover parts, outdated metadata, a folder structure that was reshuffled halfway through. Every project inherits the clutter of its predecessor, and after a year nobody knows which mistake came from where. A deliberately built starting point breaks that chain.
Starting point 1: the ready-made folder set
Create one source folder containing the complete folder structure for a new project, empty but complete. Numbered top-level folders enforce a fixed order, for example: management, design, drawing output, exchange with customer and suppliers, and a separate folder for legacy data. New project kickoff? Copy the source folder, put the project number in the name, done. That takes one minute instead of fifteen minutes of tinkering, and more importantly: every colleague finds the same layout in every project.
How that structure ties into your workspace, your libraries and your project file is something we worked out earlier in Order in your Inventor project folders: workspace, libraries and project file. A useful detail for afterwards: with Frequent Folder in Thundercad you mark the folders of the current project as favorites, and with Go To Folder you jump from any open file straight to the folder it lives in. A fixed structure then pays off again every working day.
Starting point 2: a starter assembly per product type
A blank assembly is a poor starting point for a product you build more than once. A machine builder delivering conveyor systems can prepare a starter assembly with the main coordinate system, a skeleton for the main dimensions, the standard frame and empty subassemblies for the fixed main groups: drive, guiding, control cabinet, guarding. A sheet metal company does the same with an enclosure: body, door, mounting plate and fastening set are already in place, at the right spot in the tree.
The engineer then starts not with dragging and searching, but with the questions that actually matter: filling in main dimensions, choosing options, crossing out variants. Start small: one starter assembly for the product type that comes up most often. Two or three well-maintained starter assemblies cover the bulk of the orders at most companies; a library of twenty variants is something nobody maintains.
Finally, give such a starter assembly a name you cannot possibly mistake for a real project, for example with a fixed prefix like START. Everyone then sees at a glance that this is the starting point and not last month's machine, and it stands out immediately when someone accidentally works in the original instead of in a copy. If you like, put a conspicuous dummy text where the project number goes; nobody forgets to replace that.
A fixed starting point only really works when you can reach it fast. With Go To Folder and Frequent Folder you move through your project structure without searching, from model to folder and back.
Try 30 days freeStarting point 3: the starter checklist
Not everything fits in a folder or an assembly; some things are simply a checklist. Next to the source folder, keep a short starter checklist of what needs to be arranged at every project kickoff:
- project number and customer name entered in the agreed places;
- the source folder copied and renamed to the project number;
- the starter assembly copied and rehomed to the new project;
- the fixed purchased parts and standard parts checked for currency;
- the reference project opened read-only, so nothing in the old work changes by accident.
The pitfall: the list has to stay short. Ten items works; thirty items is something nobody reads anymore. And everything about filling in document properties belongs not here but one level deeper, in your document templates; see the article on pre-filled iProperties we mentioned above.
Keeping the starting points current
A starting point nobody maintains becomes a source of clutter itself within a year. Three agreements keep it alive. Give the source folder, the starter assemblies and the checklist a single owner: changes run through that one colleague, so the starting point does not quietly drift apart into personal variants. Update at the moment something stands out: if anything is missing at a project kickoff, it gets added to the starting point that same week, not "someday". And treat the starting point as an agreement, not a suggestion: whoever deviates does so deliberately and reports it to the owner.
Frequently asked questions
Does such a starting point also work in a Vault environment?
Yes, the principle does not change. Store the source structure and the starter assemblies in the place your data management environment provides for it and copy with the functions intended for that, so references travel along cleanly. The underlying agreement stays the same: copy from one maintained source, never from the previous project.
How many starter assemblies do you need?
Fewer than you think. Start with one, for the product type that returns most often, and only add another once a second type comes up frequently enough to be worth the upkeep. Two well-kept starting points beat ten neglected ones.
What does a fixed starting point actually deliver?
Run the numbers with an assumption: forty-five minutes of setup work per project and forty projects a year adds up to roughly thirty hours, not counting the mistakes you prevent by no longer copying from old projects. And if you want to feel how fast fixed folders and favorites work: try Thundercad 30 days free.