You are your own factory, churning out more and more component data models by the day. You are the living embodiment of productivity, creating valuable resources which are reused many times over. It can be a thankless job, but the work you do has a dramatic effect on the success of your company. There is no room for mistakes.
Creating & Maintaining Component Libraries
A lot more goes into creating a component than everyone else readily acknowledges. The component is a collection of extensive parametric data, data that you need to research and compile. Often times there is no single, complete source. When actually building the component model, it’s essential that you follow industry guidelines while incorporating company standards. Sometimes you have to go back and make changes. It happens. How do you manage that process? Sometimes you want to take the easier route by using libraries created by a third party, at least as a starting point.
Get Help Building Your Library
Easily create component libraries for your organization
- Create libraries that comply with industry standards.
Learn More about IPC Footprint Wizard - Formally manage component revisions.
Learn More about Component Revisions - Search the most extensive parts database for datasheets, right from inside the design tool.
Learn More about Octopart Integration - Take advantage of our library of over 200,000 components.
Learn More about the Altium Content Vault
Distribute Libraries
Building the libraries is only half the battle. How do you get the libraries in the hands of engineers and designers? How do you maintain control so you can manage life cycles and potentially remove some items from the library, even after you’ve turned them over to the teams? How do you manage different libraries for different teams? How do you supplement the data model with useful information like pricing and availability? And how do you do it all in a way that makes it easy for your engineers to use so they don’t just make components ad-hoc on their own?
Centralized Library Management
Put libraries in the hands of engineers while they design
- Manage your components in a centralized location where you and your designers have direct, controlled and managed access.
Learn More about the Altium Vault - Easily manage the lifecycle of components in your Vault.
Learn More about Lifecycle Management - Attach pricing and availability information from popular part suppliers and your ERP to your libraries.
Learn More about Supply Chain Integration - Create component libraries from items that already exist in designs even if your designers create them ad-hoc.
Learn More about Item Manager
Track Them In The Wild
Once released, you’re still responsible for the component libraries. You monitor and gather information about the manufacturer's lifecycle and availability to be sure no one gets in a sticky situation designing with components that are no longer available. You need to be able to understand the usage of components when a component reaches the end of its lifecycle.
Tame the Wild
Tag, track and bag components from your library
- Search your entire company database of designs for component usage.
Learn More about Where Used Search