How about some insight into what other people are naming their different material files or to be more precise how are you using them. Do you have maybe only three; one for paint grade, one for stain grade, one for laminate? Is everyone creating a new one, modifying it for each project, renaming and then saving it? Just wondering what works best.

I use 1 material file. In that material file I have every material possible, 1in doug fir, 1in cedar, 1in cherry, etc.. I then have a combo box prompt called species in which the user can select the door or window species. The material cell for each part has a formula like ="1in "&Species so that it automatically looks for the proper material by which species the user selected.

I have 4 material files.  We make 90% of our cabinets from 3/4" veneer core or particle board with face veneers.  Their may also be a few p-lam parts within those cabinets.  This is covered by our main material file. 

We also make some fumehood cabinets that use different materials, hardware, thicknesses etc.  Those 2 types of cabinets, each with very different materials, have their own material file.  Finally, we sometimes make a very small quantity of completely P-lam cabinets on a job.  Those are controlled by the final material file. 

I use the wizard to find and replace core and specie the main file, and to add colour information for the P-lam file.  I also use the wizard to set all the hardware information etc.

We use one material file period. This one file contains every possible material combination we offer plus the flexibility to utilize one time only oddball materials. It currently has more than 360 distinct combinations of interior and exterior materials. The material and hardware choices are selected by the user when the job is setup in the wizard. The beauty of this system is that there is only one set of materials to keep up to date with price, thickness, supplier, color, and machining changes.

Kent

We have two Main files, one is Grained, the other in Non-Grained.  From this, we make a material file for every wood species or PL Color in the job, The Find and Replace feature makes changing the names easy.  We have two "markers" in every mat file; "PL color", and "Species".  They are changed using the find and replace to say "PL 4656-60"  Then the Material File is named "4656-60 Bronze Legacy"  Seems to have worked so far. 

Timber, looks like you and I had the same idea of just going with 1 material file. I don't understand why someone would want to deal with multiple material files and having to do find and replaces all the time.

I agree with the multiple material files hassle. I can't imagine having to maintain them. It is a lot of work just keeping one up to date.

Kent

Timber & Quantum45 can you elaborate a little more on your set ups? The "find and replace" is giving me fits. That's why I started this string in the first place, I new there had to be a better way.

How do you handle changing colors of P-lam cabinets within a room?

Seems like it'd be a nightmare if it was all it one.  When using multiple files, I only go in each file and use "find and replace" once.....(works fine in the .704 update!) By renaming the material file to the PL color, I can easily tell from the main page in the spreadsheet if a product will come out with the right material.  How on earth do you ensure it otherwise?  Do you guys go through each individual product?  I think my head would spin.  How many pointers do you have within the material files?  I can't imagine having 100's of PL colors listed in one material file. That would mean 100's of Melamine choices (3/4wmel/4656-60, 3/4wmel 4637-60, etc.).  I can Easily have 6 colors on a job.  How would you handle the pointers? But, Different strokes for different folks...  (probably different applications too) 

Millco, I'm in the Wood Window and Door industry so my application is probably quite different than yours. I'm not familiar enough with PL color and how that would work with just 1 material file. As far as being sure I'm grabbing the right material, I have a prompt called Species which I can show on the spreadsheet. This prompt determines what material is selected. I also don't use any material pointers and they seem pointless to me. I basically create a built in pointer in my material reference cell as I mentioned in my above post. So, if you were to look at the material formula for a part of the window frame it would be ="2in "&Species. If the user selects Douglas Fir in the species prompt, the material callout becomes "2in Douglas Fir", if they select Cherry, it becomes "2in Cherry" and so on.

that's pretty neat Quantum.  So, with this set up, could you have two products out of two separate species within the same job?  What about different species within the same product? 

Yes to both questions. For different species in same product, I would just make 2 different species prompts Species 1 and Species 2 or whatever. Then the material formulas for the different parts in the product would look grab the data from the correct species prompt. One part might have forumla ="1in "&Species_1, other part might have ="2in "&Species_2.

Again, I'm using MV differently then probably most people on this forum since I'm not in the cabinetry industry so I'm not sure how what I'm doing affects the preexisiting libraries and material files created by MV. Also, I'm still at the stage of creating my templates and MV is not fully implemented at our shop, however I've created various products and printed reports and it all seems to work just fine.

We have PL1,PL2,PL3, & PL4 exteriors pre setup in the file for every interior material option. For most jobs, this enough. We typically run different finishes as seperate jobs. This makes keeping track of the proper banding and stain easier. If you want to run multiple files in the same job with each one set up to a different finish, you just make copies of the one master file that is automatically loaded in the job folder when the job is created, and give them a descriptive name to make it easy to keep track of. There is just the one set of pointers, but they are hooked up to the different materials automatically when the job is setup in the wizard.

Kent

Currently we have about 5 material files set up. Grained and not grained laminate, and Melamine, and a Veneer.
That way when We do a job that has say, hardrock maple melamine interiors with WA Fusion Maple finished ends, we just have to do three find and replaces. One for two sided finished, one for one sided finished, and one for unfinished. then just do a find and replace for the edgebanding...
Really it is just to insure that the other programmers don't forget something and ask me to order material that is un-needed. The short version is trying to reduce the number of re-makes due to programming problems.
I think that you just have to pick whatever works best for your company, if you have multiple programmers you can either set up multiple material files, or make a check list for people when it comes to starting jobs.

I've been working with this thing for a little bit, and trying to get it set up as easily as possible for everyone involed.
Hope this helped