Message
Greetings. I'm in a small company, and
am tasked with automating as much of the component engineering effort as
possible without hiring a full-time components engineer. We want to do it
with the EE's providing guidance, and Engineering Services
providing gruntwork.
I know there are tools available to create
component databases which are portable to schematic capture systems, etc., and
to automate parts of the BOM, CM, and component specification drawing
creation processes. We evaluated Omniware (formerly Omnibom) from Trilogic
and will probably be placing an order for that when we acquire our Innoveda
toolset shortly.
I know of
some companies eager to sell pre-made databases if you wave enough money,
but even then, the challenge is keeping it current. OTOH, IHS seems to offer part of these services as well as
automatic upkeep in its Universal Parts Center which includes CapsXpert. I
saw CapsXpert several years ago when the technology was several dozen CD's
in platters and tower, but not in its present genesis. I will be
obtaining a quote for that.
However, I know of no tools specifically
targeted to reduce the labor of:
(1) creating component specifications,
and
(2) manual database entry of component
searchable parameters.
Any IHS users out there? Is the
service worth the price? Or can anyone recommend a better source to get
the job done? I full well realize there is no silver bullet, so I'm
looking for the least labor-intensive alternative.
Thanks,
Gary M. Koven,
C.I.D.
Engineering
Services Manager
Convacent Corporation
1043 E Morehead St, Suite 201
Charlotte, NC 28204
704.376.9300 phone
704.376.0988 fax