Bob Morris from Renaissance Services presented a joint paper with Rod Tegeler from Raytheon Missile Systems on the topic “The Intelligent Technical Data Package: Essential to Success in the Extended Enterprise for TOW Missile”.  The presentation covered the use of the Bill of Characteristics as a means of definitive collaboration in the TOW supply chain. The paper was selected for presentation at the 2011 Defense Manufacturing Conference held in Anaheim, California on Nov 29 to Dec 1.

http://www.meetingdata.utcdayton.com/agenda/viewabstract.asp?aid=6186&ID=dmc201112315016

This month we plan on a point release to include some more OCR recognition patterns. Be sure to attend a demo in January to see the new functionality and more user friendly options.

When you use the GD&T editor (on the Characteristic Properties box, bottom right corner), you can start selecting the existing datum references as you build your feature control frames. Once you indicate the datums, those items are stored in the Existing Datum drop-down box. Each unique entry is stored for that TDP.

When you are setting up the OCR Settings, you may want to choose PDF text if the drawing has text recognition. Here is how you test this. Open the drawing in Adobe (PDF) and press CTRL and F and enter a word you know is in the drawing, such as “the”. If the search results can find that word, then you should select PDF for the OCR Settings. If no results are found, then the PDF does not have text recognition and you need to select OCR which will extract the text from the image for you. Click Tools and OCR Settings to make your selection.

If you attended any of the webinars or training events for November, you are entered into a drawing for a $50.00 Amazon gift card. We will be selecting a winner (or 2 or 3) soon and will contact you about redeeming your prize! Winners will be announced in the December issue of the DISCUS Dispatch.

If your blue print drawing skips a letter on the zone/grid/location, such as G or I, you can apply the DISCUS grid that will also skip that letter. Often blue prints skip the letter I as it looks much like a 1, so click the Zone / Grid icon in DISCUS and at the bottom of that page, enter the letter to skip, such as I and that letter is bypassed and replaced with the J. If  you need to skip more than one letter, such as G and I just put a comma between what you need to skip and the letters are skipped.

1. Use the keyboard to better navigate through the fields of the Characteristic Properties window.
2.  For example, when you have the terms list selected if you hit ‘D’ it will jump to Diameter (or the first term listed alphabetically for that letter).  Then, you can hit the Tab key to ‘jump’ to the Data Type field.  
3. Then just hit S, R, or T for Single Value, Range for Tolerance, respectively.  
4. Then you can tab over to the tolerance and unit of measure fields.  You may or may not already be doing this but with some practice this can save time by preventing unnecessary use of the mouse and clicking.  Basically, it allows you to max efficiency by using the keyboard in conjunction with the mouse. 
5.  Also, if you hit the ALT key it will enable the Next, Previous buttons.  So, hitting ALT+N will cycle you through to the next characteristic number.

If you created a characteristic with GD&T data and then decided you want to remove it, you can easily do so.

1. Open the Characteristic Preoperties of the item you want to edit.
2. Click the GD&T editor (bottom right) to open it.
3. If you had entered FCF (Feature Control Frame) Guided that you want removed, click the drop-down type and select Free Hand.
4. Click Cancel. The item is removed.
5. To remove the Free hand, seelct the FCF on the drop-down and then click Cancel and the item is also removed.