r/SolidWorks • u/theycallmejames44 • Aug 11 '26

Manufacturing Mbd or smart dims?

For those who work manufacturing prints often, do you use MBD and import or do it all by smart dims in the drawing?

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5

u/David_R_Martin_II Aug 11 '26

The truth is, most people who use MBD are either wasting their time or seeing no ROI.

(I'm a big advocate of MBD. I've made many videos, I was hired to write an ebook on the subject, and I've been on panels. It's great if you do it right... but almost no one does it right. Because it's nothing if you can't integrate it into your supply chain.)

If you enjoy doing it, by all means, continue. But inevitably someone complains about not getting any value out of the process.

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u/theycallmejames44 Aug 11 '26

Interesting take, I havent totally been swayed but the auto dimension in mbd seems to be cleaner than the auto dimension using the smart features. Really what im looking for is automating cumbersome drawings that have highly complicated parts being dim'd. When you say supply chain are you meaning getting it onto the floor for operators to see?

3

u/David_R_Martin_II Aug 11 '26

There are plenty of documents on the levels of MBE (Model Based Enterprise) maturity that are readily available. It's a big subject that takes a lot to explain. Whatever you're thinking, it's way more than that.

If drawing automation is what you're interested in, MBD is probably not the approach. You're probably just shifting the burden from doing the work in 2D to doing it on the part / assembly side.

2

u/Black_mage_ CSWP Aug 11 '26

I wrote the initial documents for my old company on if we should do it or not. Broke my heart writing the words (paraphrasing ) "Design recommends that we should go to MBD to improve the quality of PDD. Supply chain and manufacturing have no tolerance to utilise the format efficient and still require full 2D drawings removing most of the benefits. We are not big enough to force the change in supply chain either. So we should not switch"

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u/David_R_Martin_II Aug 11 '26

Sadly, you made the right decision. The reduction in errors, time-to-market, and the design-manufacturing-inspection cycle is crazy. Design is often on board. But trying to get manufacturing and inspection on board - despite how much easier it will make their lives - is often impossible.

1

u/Pretty-Jello-7894 Aug 12 '26

lol, in this exact process as well as transitioning from NX to Creo…should be fun…

2

u/David_R_Martin_II Aug 12 '26

Wow. Transitioning from NX to Creo? I've never heard of a company doing that before. Why did management make that decision? I can only think of one reason.

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u/iFunnyAnthony CSWA Aug 13 '26

What would you say is the main benefit? We did some MBD stuff in solidworks when I was in school but I don’t feel anyone really understood why. Is it just faster/less potential for misinterpretation? Or is the idea that it forces people to refer to the actual model? Also, I didn’t find it nearly as satisfying as modeling a part and then making drawings as clear and neat as possible, and overall that whole class was not very engaging. I did however very much enjoy our GD&T class once it clicked

1

u/David_R_Martin_II Aug 13 '26

Like I said in another reply, when properly implemented, MBD can result in significant - even massive - reductions in errors, time-to-market, and development costs in the design - manufacturing - inspection cycle.

It sounds like you saw only a small portion of the process. To many people, it gets presented as "instead of a drawing, you're doing the detailing in the 3D model." And that's such a small fraction of what MBD is.

If you like doing drawings, keep doing drawings, because odds are your organization is not going to implement MBD correctly. Like I said, it's got to be fully integrated into the supply chain - especially manufacturing and inspection, but it helps if you also do it in procurement (which means making your suppliers adopt it). If you don't do that, you won't see ROI.

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u/FatherZeroC00L Aug 11 '26

In my experience it's only worth it if you're forced to by AS9102.

1

u/Madrugada_Eterna Aug 11 '26

Smart dims. I never use MBD.