Effective PMI Management with NX Hole Callouts

Working in design engineering with NX, the solution from Siemens Digital Industries Software, provides the functionality of so called "NX hole callouts". NX hole and thread callouts are associative descriptions/labels for holes and threads. They are created from multiple parameters, derived directly from the hole feature data. The reference object for the Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) of a hole callout is the hole feature type and not its geometry.

 

How to define a NX hole callout

There are five different feature types supported by NX hole callouts. It is possible to select between the following options:

• Hole
• Drill Size Hole
• Screw Clearance Hole
• Threaded Hole
• Symbolic Thread

Challenge

NX hole callouts can be difficult to handle because each hole callout parameter requires an additional validation. Depending on their feature type and parameters, it is possible that you need several different inspection steps for even a single PMI hole callout. Due to this, the downstream quality processes can be error prone and slow when conducted manually.

Solution

The aim is to reduce the manual effort for the downstream quality process as far as possible. This is where BCT Inspector comes in. It automates the described process by deciding how many inspection steps are needed for each hole callout. It starts ballooning and assigns unique characteristic numbers (CN) according to the number of inspection steps.

The picture below shows how the result could look like.

By providing these functionalities, BCT Inspector helps you with ballooning all necessary information for the quality management processes. Furthermore, it offers the possibility to generate the inspection report. This way it can help you to reduce the effort put in the downstream quality management processes and improve your efficiency. BCT Inspector is also integrated in Opcenter Quality and Teamcenter Quality from Siemens Digital Industries Software, where the information from the model can be used for an effective quality management.