[em0sh]

Mechanical Engineer here - this is the million dollar question.

We currently use antiquated systems, or bad software based on antiquated systems.

My approach - don’t rely on software. It’s a mentality, not a software. Your CAD should be organized in a future proof structure. Your analysis should reference the hardware by diagram. You should be able to easily find the analysis with nothing more than a hunch. Your drawings should be organized and the numbering should make sense. Create a part numbering schema that gives some information more than just the part number.

Ask yourself every day - if someone asks me where the work I did today is, would I be able to quickly find it?

[letitbeirie]

Non-software engineering has needed a git-like version control system for decades now but there are two giant hurdles:

- Designing a UI for resolving merge conflicts is non-trivial and a lot of the visual cues git diff viewers use to highlight conflicts (colors, marker text, etc.) don't translate well into a CAD viewer

- The Autodesks and Bentleys of the world work in proprietary binary files so any solution would only work for one vendor, and sometimes only one flavor of one vendor

[iancmceachern]

Do you use a PDM system?

[em0sh]

At work. I think it’s not very good most of the time.

[iancmceachern]

It's all in the setup.

If done properly it can be setup to automate a lot of the tedious work, making the process of designing things much smoother.

If done improperly it adds even more nonsense to all the stuff you already are doing, so it makes the process If desiging things twice as hard and confusing.

The key - have people that have actually used it to design things architect the setup, not professional managers.