03 November, 2021

QBuild CADLink: Fourth Shift integration with CAD
 

Innovation is the driving force to successfully compete in today’s fast-paced global manufacturing environment. This holds true for engineering departments. It is challenging to keep up with time requirements to input accurate Bill of Material (BOM) and Item Master data into both CAD and ERP.

Up until now, there hasn’t been an automated solution that integrates Fourth Shift ERP with your company’s CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) software. This changed when QBuild released an updated version of their popular CADLink product. The update now supports Fourth Shift.

CADLink for Fourth Shift allows engineers to create records in Fourth Shift identical to engineering CAD Data instantly. It streamlines the entire product development process by integrating your CAD system (SOLIDWORKS, AutoCAD, CREO, Altium, etc.) with Fourth Shift. This allows your engineering staff to focus on engineering rather than double data entry.

CADLink also delivers bi-directional  automation. This means BOM from Fourth Shift can update CADLink, and designs from CADLink can update Fourth Shift. From there, BOM and Item Master components are compared with any that already exist in the target system. CADLink highlights discrepancies between CAD and Fourth Shift. This allows operators to select or enter the correct data.

CADLink reads BOM and Item Master data from Fourth Shift using SQL Foundation Business Views. Updates to Fourth Shift are made through the Fourth Shift Transactional Interface (FSTI). This means that FSTI is a requirement.

Key benefits of using CADLink:
Eliminate clerical work to free up engineering resources
Reduce scrap and shop floor confusion by improving BOM and Item Master data accuracy
Improve part re-use by synchronizing CAD data at the click of a button
Build more complex products without adding costs
Reduce engineering-to-production lead time with data transfer process automation
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To learn more about CADLink, simply reach out to your sales rep. We’d be happy to demo the feature for you.