Systems · January 2026
PDM Vault Framework for a Brownfield Part Library
Designed a data card, revision, and state model for a CAD vault covering parts that predated any numbering scheme.
The situation
A part library grown over years with no consistent numbering, several competing revision conventions, and released drawings whose CAD files could not always be located. Standard advice is to start clean. That is not available when the parts are already in production.
The framework
- A part numbering and classification scheme that could absorb legacy numbers without renumbering released parts
- Data card fields chosen so that every field is either required by change control or removed, with no optional metadata nobody maintains
- A workflow state model with explicit gates for released, obsolete, and in-revision, mapped to the existing ECO process
- A migration path that let legacy parts enter the vault at their current revision instead of blocking on a full audit
Principle behind it
A configuration management system that demands the library be clean before it will accept parts never gets adopted. The framework has to be able to swallow the mess and improve it incrementally.