Help!

[fcflores1]

I have a question for you guys. How do you guys control your electrical prints? Let’s say you make a copy for an electrician so that they can make the necessary changes that you requested. How would you mark that print? Would working copy be ok? Also how would you mark the machine copy and destroyed copy? My main goal is to control what I put on paper. Any help would appreciate. Thanks……

[GerryM]

I just use drawing # and revision #. Then I put a copy in the machine. Then a year or so later, when half or all of the machine copy is missing I copy the original or CAD files again and put them in the machine. And, so on, etc. Once in a while someone, from maintenance, will bring me an update that they made. I don't have any mission critical or safety sytems type machinery or processes to take care of. Do you? Edited November 7, 2006 by GerryM

[fcflores1]

I was asked to somehow come up with a way to control my paper prints. An example would be like if I had an electrician make some changes for me I would give them a working copy with notes on how I would like the job done and so on and once they are done with the print they would destroy it. With a machine print I would label controlled along with the date. Do any of you do this, our am I this going to extremes?

[Ken Moore]

We did away with paper controlled documents several years ago. Now all our printed drawings have a large bold block that informs the user that only the electronic from can be considered the latest revision, and that all printed documents are uncontrolled.

[TConnolly]

We plot the print ot a PDF file. The PDF file is the sole controlled version of the print. Printed copies are not considered controlled. The PDF plots are available on the server to anyone who may need them and they can print a current copy at any time. We strongly recommend that our maintenance staff use this rather than depend on a print where they may have no idea what the current revision is. We rely on the maintenance guys to redline a print and submit it to engineering if they make a change. Then we update the print and the controlled PDF plot. They are usually pretty good at this because they know that if they don't do it then it will come back to bite them. For new work a print is issued with a water-mark on the plot to designate that it is for construction only. After construction an as built revision is issued.

[fcflores1]

Why are printed copies not considered controlled? Where can I info on that statment?

[BobLfoot]

I think what everyone is dancing around is the ISO 9000 concept of controlled documents. In an ISO environment your document manual can state that all printed copies are considered uncontrolled and you're good at that.

[dogleg43]

========================================== I believe BobLfoot is correct about the ISO9000 thing. What's happening at our place is some genius has decided not to keep ANY prints in the panel or available to the electrician. When something goes wrong you have to go to engineering or the drafting dept. to print out the latest version. This is crazy but if they can stand the downtime then I can take waiting around for the prints to come to me. Things sound good in theory but sometimes don't work out in the real world. How often has this been said??

[TConnolly]

I agree dogleg, that sounds crazy. We plot all prints to a PDF file and place the PDF in a folder where everyone who needs to get at it can. Anyone with Adobe Acrobat can open, view, and if the PDF document properties allow it, they can print a copy. If someone can have a print, logically they can have access to the folder. We set up sub folders by plant location or machine type, with more subfolders for specific eqipment with prints for electrical, hydraulic, and any PDF copies of manuals we have, etc., all there for quick and easy access. It means more work up front for us engineers to create the PDF, but we only have to do it once for each rev, and maintenance guys and operators don't have to come up to enginering. Edited November 9, 2006 by Alaric

[ssommers]

I like the PDF idea for electrical drawings. What about taking that one step further and PDF the PLC ladder logic printouts? Pros? Cons?

[TERdON]

Going through 10 cm of printed (or "printed" in case of a PDF file) PLC ladder like in the last big project my company did) to find a bug? Ugh!! Just save the original, editable files without changing them. If you're really fancy, consider using concurrent versioning systems with support for binary files, like Subversion.

[TConnolly]

We do that, however I find that these are almost never refered to. Any maintenance guy who would have any business with a program printout will also have access to the PLC programming software, and they usually prefer to look at the program online. That brings up another good point: program revision control. We keep the latest approved version of the program on the server and any one who would need to have the file has access to it. The server version is read only for maintenance staff. Only engineering has write access and is responsible for revision control. However, that did not prevent Bubba from downloading a four year old version on his laptop to a PLC a while back when he incorrectly assumed that a download would solve all of the problems on the machine instead of replacing the bad hydraulic valve. We had to hold some remedial training sessions after that, ...er, ...um, incident.