Give someone an electronic drawing, and what’s the first thing they want to do with it? That’s right: print a hardcopy.

It’s the story of our times, isn’t it? The more computer-based we become, and the more information is available in electronic format, the more paper we use printing it all out. I know; I do it too. Those of you who are using a paperless product development process – and I can name at least one – can pat yourselves on the back. Those of you who still like to hold the drawing in your hands – I understand. For now.

But there’s a fundamental problem with the paper drawing: as soon as it exists on paper, it’s either immediately out of date due to a change, or the veracity of its version is in question. After all, just because someone entered “B.6” as a note on the drawing doesn’t mean it’s really “B.6”, does it? Maybe they forgot to type the current version, or, if they remembered, maybe they typed it wrong.

If this doesn’t lead to a mistake in production or delivery, at the very least the resulting doubt and confusion is a waste of valuable time.

Obviously this is a problem with drawings that are not controlled by a data management application, but it can be a problem with controlled drawings as well, if they don’t also contain automatically-populated database information.

However, if you call out the appropriate Pro/INTRALINK database parameters on the database-controlled drawing, then even the Version note is a reflection of that control. To do this, rather than typing (for example) “B.6”, you would type “&PTC_WM_VERSION” instead. The current version (for example, B.6) will be read from the Pro/INTRALINK database. Thus the version shown in the note on the drawing will be the same as the current version displayed in the browser. Problem solved!

While you’re at it, here are some other parameters that might be of interest:

&PTC_WM_REVISION = e.g. “B”

&PTC_WM_ITERATION = e.g. “6”

&PTC_WM_LIFECYCLE_STATE = e.g. “In Work”

&PTC_WM_MODIFIED_ON = e.g. “12-03-2006” (disclaimer: I need to research the supported formats!)

&PTC_WM_MODIFIED_BY = e.g. “J. Rembold”

The moral of the story: If you’re going to kill trees over an engineering drawing, at least make sure that the Version is correct.

That’s all for now. I need to go out and buy some more bar and chain oil.

-Jeff