How many times a day does someone at your company look something up by number? Work preparation searches by the order number from the ERP, the engineer by the project number in the folder name, the fitter by whatever happens to be in the title block. As long as those numbers match everywhere, nobody notices a thing. The moment they differ, the detective work starts: is folder P8317 the same job as sales order 4126, and does the drawing marked 8317-B belong to it or not?
That detective work is entirely avoidable. In this article you pull one number as a common thread through your environment, so that the project number and order number are identical everywhere in your CAD work: from folder name to title block and from iProperty to export file. Most of it is agreement and discipline; for updating existing work in bulk, a toolbox like Thundercad helps. And to keep the scope clean: article numbers for reusable parts are a system of their own with their own rules, deliberately left out here. This is about the number that follows a job through the company, from order intake to delivery.
Why the numbers drift apart
Usually nobody makes a mistake, and still three spellings appear. Sales creates an order in the ERP and automatically gets an order number. Engineering starts a project folder and sticks its own project number on it, because that is how it has always been done. The draftsman copies whatever the template of a previous job contained. Three systems, three habits, three numbers that are almost, but not quite, the same.
The bill arrives in scattered pieces, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed:
- searching takes longer everywhere, because every question starts with translating between numbers;
- exports end up in the wrong folder or under an outdated name at the customer;
- work preparation matches drawings to orders by hand, week after week;
- when a question or claim comes in, sometimes long after delivery, it is hard to prove which drawing belonged to which order.
Pick one leading number and one way of writing it
The first agreement: which number is the common thread? At companies where one order equals one job, the order number from the ERP is the logical choice: it exists first, and everyone outside engineering already knows it. If several orders run under one project, make the project number the thread and record in one place which project each order belongs to, usually in the ERP itself.
The second agreement: one way of writing it. A fixed number of positions, prefix or no prefix, no spaces or punctuation that will get mangled in file names anyway. Put it on a single sheet with three good and three bad examples, and hang it not just at engineering but at sales and work preparation too. Most deviations do not come from unwillingness, but from nobody knowing there was an agreement.
From folder name to file name
The project folder starts with the number, followed by a short description: number first, because that is what gets sorted and searched on. Everything belonging to the job lives under that one folder. Subfolders do not inherit the number: once in the path is enough, and repeating it doubles the chance of typos.
For file names the same sober rule applies: files tied to a project carry the number, so a loose PDF in a mailbox or on a USB stick always points back to its job. You do not want to maintain that by hand; how to build file names automatically from iProperties, project number included, is covered in Building file names automatically from iProperties.
In iProperties and on the title block
Now the core. In your CAD environment the number should have one source: an iProperty, for example the project field. The title block reads that field, and so do your BOM and your search. So never type the number loose into a drawing; that creates a second source that can quietly drift away from the first. If the field is right, it is right everywhere.
On a new project that is a single entry. On an assembly of three hundred parts it is drudgery, and that is exactly where teams give up. With Assembly iProp Menu you set the project number on all parts of an assembly in one go, instead of file by file. How to approach such a bulk action more broadly, for other fields too, is covered in Updating the metadata of a complete assembly in one pass.
Putting one number on three hundred parts should not cost you an afternoon. With Assembly iProp Menu from Thundercad you fill the iProperties of a complete assembly in one go.
Try 30 days freeThe number in every export
Everything that leaves the building, a PDF for the customer, a DXF for the sheet metal supplier, a STEP for a toolmaker, should carry the number in its file name. The recipient does not have your folder structure; the file name is the only thing that travels along. So agree on a fixed export name that starts with the number, and have that name come from the iProperties instead of from last-minute typing.
Exporting drawings one at a time is something you keep up for a week, then the improvising returns. With Batch Publish you publish all drawings of a job in one run to PDF, DWG, DXF and STEP, and it works together with Vault as well. The complete package then goes out the door in one pass and according to the same agreements.
Catching up existing work
Then there is the older work, in which the number is written three different ways. Updating everything is a waste of time; doing nothing means years more of translating. The middle road:
- list what is still alive: running orders, machines under maintenance, products still being developed;
- align the folder names of those projects with the agreement first;
- then fill the number field per assembly in bulk; per project that is a matter of minutes instead of an afternoon;
- do not refresh title blocks all at once, but at the next change of each drawing;
- leave the archive alone: it stays findable through the project folder.
Frequently asked questions
Project number or order number: which one leads?
The number that lives longest and is best known outside engineering. If one order equals one job, take the order number from the ERP. If several orders fall under one project, choose the project number and record the link with the orders in one fixed place.
Does the number really belong in every file name?
At the very least in the folder name and in everything that leaves the company. Inside the project folder you can be more pragmatic: there, the path already tells which job a file belongs to. Outside that folder, the file name is the only carrier of that information.
How much work is catching up existing work?
With bulk tooling it is manageable: as an assumption, count on minutes per assembly for filling the number field, plus a one-time alignment of folder names per project. Feel how that works for yourself: try Thundercad 30 days free.