Establishing Engineering Standard Operating Procedures

What do you need to established engineering standard operating procedures (SOPs) within your Engineering organization?

If your organization follows ISO manufacturing standards (e.g., ISO 9000) or plans to, your Engineering department will need Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for key tasks. These aren’t about how to ‘Engineer’ but focus on managing documentation and design processes more effectively. SOPs ensure consistency, improve efficiency, and help your team meet compliance requirements without extra headaches. This article builds on my SOLIDWORKS World 2011 presentation and offers updated information to help your team navigate these needs.

The following are examples of procedures that will likely be necessary for your organization.

  • Drawing Standards SOP – preparing mechanical drawings per Engineering Standards (e.g., ISO 128, ASME Y14.5, BS 8888). This should include instructions on selecting templates, naming conventions, part numbering, filling out title blocks and even preferred drawing view layouts. Model-based Definition may require its own SOP too.
  • CAD Document Management SOP – processes for organizing, naming, storing, accessing and distributing CAD documents, including guidelines for 3D CAD models and cloud-based tools. This may include instructions on file and model formats, such as creating PDFs of drawings or distributing models as STEP to outside vendors.
  • Drawing Review and Approval SOP – steps for peer reviews, quality checks and approvals of drawings.
  • Revision Notation and Control SOP – marking and controlling revisions of drawings.
  • Template and Symbol Libraries SOP – maintenance and use of standardized templates, symbols, blocks and CAD customizations such as macros and data tables .
  • Design Review SOP – formal process for review of design and drawings
  • Engineering Change SOP – steps for initiating and documenting proposed changes to designs and drawings (Engineering Change Request; ECR), then their approval and implementation (Engineering Change Order; ECO), including notification and effectivity for full traceability (Engineering Change Notification; ECN).

For Engineering departments, these procedures should be tailored around their CAD application(s), PDM and PLM systems.

Structure of SOPs

Organizations that have well-documented processes should establish a template for their procedures. There are several elements that most standard operating procedures should include. Each SOP should be use a number-base layout that employs functionality of the chosen wordprocessor. This list of elements should be tailored for the Engineering department. The following is an example of the required (as applicable) elements with a brief explanation.

  1. Title and Document Information
    • Title – descriptive and specific to the task or process.
    • Document Number – unique identifier for tracking.
    • Version or Revision Number – indicates current version.
    • Effective Date – the date upon which the document becomes valid.
    • Approval Signatures – for validation and compliance.
  2. Purpose – the reason the procedure exists.
  3. Scope – extent to which the procedure applies (the processes and roles are controlled by this document).
  4. Responsibilities – define roles and responsibilities of personnel involved.
  5. Definitions – list and define specialized terms and abbreviations.
  6. Materials, Tools, and Equipment – list of required resources to complete the procedure. Include software applications that are utilized within the process described within this document.
  7. Procedure – actual procedural instructions, often in step-by-step format with clear statements with explanatory diagrams and images. Typically, this will be the bulk of the document.
  8. Troubleshooting – guidance for handling common issues or errors.
  9. References -links to related documents, manuals, or regulations.
  10. Revision History – a table that tracks changes over time with notes on updates.

Once the types of SOPs are established and a structure for the SOPs is agreed upon within your organization, the task of actually writing the procedures comes next. This could mean completely rewriting old procedures or writing new ones. Future articles in this series will address good writing practices for SOPs and specific considerations that cover CAD related needs and an organization’s processes.

Sort of a recent history SOLIDWORKS Symbols Library

Since SOLIDWORK 2012, new symbols were added to the SOLIDWORKS Symbol Library with each release. This is not intentional. This fact is an artifact of an increased focus on Drawing functionality in SOLIDWORKS since that time. So, just as a curiosity, I’m going back to see what was added, and roughly when. It’s not going to be precise in some cases because not every addition to the library showed up in the What’s New.

Note that this list does not include symbols created as part of new annotation tools, such as Location Label, Flag Notes or Movable Datum Targets.

2012-2014

There is an older article that covers symbols which were added from 2012 to 2014 called New stuff in SolidWorks 2014 (not mentioned in “What’s New”): Symbols. It covers the introduction of inspection symbols, functional symbols (such as Rho and center of mass) and introduction of drawing view symbols.

2014

Additionally, in 2014, several JIS weld symbols were added and supported in the Weld Symbol annotation for JIS drawing standard.

  • Edge
  • Keyhole
  • Scarf
  • Stud
  • Penetration
  • Backing
  • Chadding (following figure)
JIS Weld symbols

Finally, an updated version of the JIS Chadding symbol was added

JIS Chadding symbol

2015

Spotface symbol for hole callouts was replaced. The previous version of the symbol relied in the current font of the document, so text within the symbol only lined up properly for one specific font. This new version simply followed ASME specifications and ignores the document font.

Spotface

2016

Though not in the What’s New, several Inspection Symbols where added.

  • Left Filled Circle
  • Right Filled Circle
  • Top Filled Circle
  • Bottom Filled Circle
  • Full Filled Circle
Inspection circles

2017

A lot of new symbols where added to support ISO drawing standards, plus one new ASME symbol.

ISO Tolerencing symbols

ASME symbol called Conical Taper, which can be found in Modifying Symbols category:

Conical Taper symbol

2018

Draft symbols were introduced.

  • Plus Draft
  • Minus Draft
  • Parting Line Diamond
  • Parting Line
  • Tolerance Draft
Draft symbols, including one symbol that does not appear in the standards, but used by some customers

2019

More ISO Tolerencing symbols were added.

Additional ISO Tolerencing symbols

Your own customizations to the Symbol Library

SOLIDWORKS has a file called GTOL.SYM from which the Symbol Library is derived. This file is an editable text file. Here’s a couple of sources on how to edit this file to create your own symbols:

Do you need one or more symbols added to the SOLIDWORKS Symbol Library?

Although there is no guarantee of implementation, you are welcome to submit requests for new symbols via the Enhancement Request link within your Customer Portal. Make sure your submission includes any standards or other specifications to which your symbol must comply, the purpose of the symbol, and other information about the symbol to help us understand its use.

More information about submitting Enhancement Requests may be found at SOLIDWORKS corporate blog.