Guidelines and improvement suggestions for the creation of automated 2D-drawings used in product configuration

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this work has been to investigate if there is a way to create 2D-drawings in SolidWorks that make them more suited for automation with configuration software. Another purpose has been to explore if the configuration software TactonWorks could be improved regarding how it handles 2D-drawings. At the start of the project, many users of TactonWorks had problems creating configurable 2D-drawings and it was considered to be tedious and time consuming. In this report, guidelines for creating configurable 2D-drawings will be presented. Suggestions for how TactonWorks can be improved to make it easier for the user to create configurable drawings will also be brought up. To achieve this, a theoretical study about drawing standards and SolidWorks, as well as interviews with users of TactonWorks was conducted. Self-studies both of SolidWorks and TactonWorks, by the authors of this thesis, were also a basis for the results. It turned out that most of the users did not use any special methods to create configurable drawings, but there were some exceptions. Overall most of the users encountered the same sort of problems, where the most critical was the handling of positions of dimensions and other details on drawings with TactonWorks. The basic problem with creating drawings was to make sure they looked legible, without overlapping dimensions and views, in multiple configurations, and this could be difficult with the tools available. The suggested guidelines include, amongst other things, the importance of controlling everything on the drawing in order to control, as far as possible, how it deals with changes. The importance of using references that are robust for multiple configurations is also brought up. The main software improvements regarding TactonWorks include a new way of dealing with the positioning of dimensions, and other details of the drawing. After the empirical and the theoretical studies were finished it was concluded that TactonWorks should go towards being more automated, but it is still important for the user to have some control.