This was briefly brought up in another thread (https://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/NX-Design-Forum/Linking-PMI-dimensions-across-in-process-models/m-p/422063#M15219) but (with a bit of prompting ;-) I thought I'd start a separate thread.
Quality groups deal with "Characteristic Numbers" (CNs), typically shown on drawings or PMI as balloons. These are then used in things like AS9102 reports, etc.
I've seen Quality add them to drawings (using balloons), using software like BCT Inspector or Discus.
But there are some problems with this:
1) Quality typically needs to do this LONG after drawings/models (in a managed environment) are released, so they can't be saved on the drawing or in the model
2) People in quality typically don't have write access to parts anyhow.
3) If you have designers/drafters (who do have write access) do this as part of their tasks, they may not do it the way quality wants it done.
4) If quality (somehow) gets write access to the drawing, and the balloons get added & saved, this is a change to the drawing, and (from a customer perspective) may require an ECN/ECO
5) The balloons add "clutter" to drawings, making complicated drawings that much harder to review. (on the other hand, communication with suppliers is better *with* the balloons, as you can refer to "CN 123" and everyone knows EXACTLY what dimension/text is being referenced...)
I was wondering how other companies deal with this?
From playing with BCT Inspector 8-10 years ago, it can save the CN data in a separate dataset in TC, so you can "on the fly" create (and re-create) a drawing with the exact same CN assignment every time, and not alter the original NX part. But this means you have to re-run the program (requiring a license) to see the CN balloons, or else save a (Separate!) PDF/JT dataset with them already applied. I'm not sure if BCT has changed technology anything since then, so this may have changed.
Would the ability to add & save a "quality overlay" of a drawing (or model PMI data) be a useful capability? I'm thinking it could be a different named reference or dataset in an Item Revision in Teamcenter? (or a completely separate item?) ) So you could just open the "quality overlay" dataset/named ref/??? and directly see the balloons. And this overlay would be kept associative to model/drawing changes (at least for the drafting/PMI data in the original)...
NOTE: *If I understand correctly*, Siemens owns QMS, which is "quality" software, but QMS doesn't actually balloon/create CNs for drawings/PMI - it relies on that being done by other software (BCT Inspector or whatever) to be fed to QMS - please correct me if I'm wrong