First Demo: Rethinking PDM Workflow with CAD File Agent

A new kind of experience for engineers who never wanted a PDM system in the first place

We Started with a Boring Problem

Earlier this week we shared the article about CAD file management and PDM for SOLIDWORKS users. The honest title of that article could have been: why do engineers hate PDM so much, and what can we do about it?

If you haven’t read it yet, start there. The short version: traditional PDM systems were built for control. They delivered control. But they also delivered friction, setup complexity, steep learning curves, and a workflow that always seemed to interrupt engineering rather than support it.

The problem was never the concept of managing CAD files. Teams genuinely need to know where their files are, who is working on what, which version is current, and how to get back to an older revision. These are real needs.

The problem was the experience. PDM felt like a bureaucratic layer on top of any CAD system (SOLIDWORKS included). You need to install it and configure (this is an on prem version). Cloud options are better, but they often need you to change the way you work and sometimes put a virtual cloud disc between the CAD system and PDM, which changed the experience completely. Engineers tolerated it. They never loved it.

So we asked a different question: what if file management didn’t feel like file management at all?

The Idea: A Conversational Assistant Built on Real PDM Power

CAD File Agent starts from a simple observation: engineers are already talking to AI. They use it to write code, summarize documents, draft emails. The conversational interface is no longer unfamiliar.

What if that same conversational experience could be applied to PDM tasks – locking files, syncing changes, creating revisions, retrieving old versions—while running on a robust cloud platform and deep SOLIDWORKS integration underneath?

That is what CAD File Agent is. It combines:

• A conversational assistant interface you can talk to naturally inside SOLIDWORKS
• OpenBOM’s CAD integration layer that understands SOLIDWORKS file structures, dependencies, and references
• A cloud platform that handles storage, versioning, revision management, and access control

The result is a new type of experience. Instead of navigating menus, configuring vaults, or memorizing workflows, you just describe what you need. The agent understands the context—which file is open, which assembly it belongs to, what the current state is—and performs the right operation.

Seamless data management stops being a promise and starts being the default.

See It in Action: Three Demo Scenarios

The best way to understand CAD File Agent is to watch it work. Each scenario below has a corresponding video that shows the workflow in real time.

Scenario 1 — Setup: From Zero to Ready in Minutes

Traditional PDM setup is a project in itself. Client-server installations, IT involvement, vault configuration, user permissions—before a single engineer can check in a file, days of setup work may have happened behind the scenes. Cloud PDM systems reduced some of this, but setup still required decisions, configuration, and training.

CAD File Agent takes a fundamentally different approach. Here is everything you need to do:

• Register an OpenBOM account
• Install the SOLIDWORKS add-in
• Open CAD File Agent and select a project folder

That’s it. You can select a top-level folder that contains all your projects, or a specific project folder. CAD File Agent takes it from there.

Once the folder is selected, the agent scans all SOLIDWORKS files in the folder structure, identifies dependencies and references between assemblies, parts, and drawings, syncs everything to the cloud, and builds the complete information model needed to start working. It handles the complexity. You select a folder.

💡  You can point the agent at a top-level folder that covers multiple projects, or a single project folder. Both work. Start with whatever is most natural for how your team organizes files.

Scenario 2 — Everyday Workflow: Lock, Edit, Push, Revision

Once setup is complete, the everyday workflow is where CAD File Agent changes the most.

The agent operates contextually. It knows which file is open in SOLIDWORKS. It knows which assembly that file belongs to. When you give a command, the agent acts in the right context automatically—you don’t have to specify it.

Lock

Open a file you want to work on and tell the agent to lock it. The file is checked out and reserved for you. Other users cannot update it. If someone tries, SOLIDWORKS alerts them immediately.

For an assembly, the same command works at the assembly level. The agent understands the scope and locks accordingly.

Edit

Make your changes in SOLIDWORKS exactly as you normally would. Save the file. Nothing changes about how you work inside SOLIDWORKS—you are not learning a new tool, you are just adding a layer of control on top of the workflow you already have.

Push Changes

When you are ready to share your work, tell the agent to push changes or sync changes. The agent detects which files have been updated since the last sync and uploads only those files—smart sync, not a full re-upload. New versions are created automatically for everything that changed.

Revisions

Creating a revision is a single command. From the design structure panel or through conversation, you can:

• Save a top-down revision—start from the top-level assembly, propagate the revision down through subassemblies and parts
• Save a bottom-up revision—start from a changed part, and up-rev the parent subassemblies and top-level assembly

Both directions are supported. Revisions work the way your team actually thinks about design changes, not the way a database expects to receive them.

▶  VIDEO: Contextual workflow

Scenario 3 — Accessing Old Revisions

Getting back to a previous revision is one of the most common, and most frustrating, tasks in traditional PDM. Which files made up that revision? Are they all here? Did something get overwritten? How to put it in the same workspace where you have recent files? 

With CAD File Agent, you just ask.

Open an assembly and ask the agent to retrieve a specific revision—say, Revision A. Or browse the revision list in the panel and select it. The agent identifies the exact combination of assemblies and parts that made up that revision and makes it available in the chat for download.

💡  Copy the downloaded revision files into your working folder and sync back to the cloud. This is effectively a revert to that previous revision—restoring the exact design state as it existed at that point, and making it the new working version.

No manual file hunting. No guessing. No reconstructing a design state from scattered folder backups. The agent retrieves the precise historical snapshot and puts it in your hands.

▶  VIDEO: Retrieving an old revision

What Is Conceptually Different

CAD File Agent is not just a simpler PDM interface. The architecture is genuinely different from how PDM systems have worked for decades.

Traditional PDM systems run on one side—a vault or database that engineers must connect to and interact with through a dedicated client. The client is often embedded in the CAD tool, but the model is the same: the database is the source of truth, and the engineer works within its rules.

CAD File Agent inverts this relationship.

• CAD File Agent operates inside the CAD tool, in the context of what the engineer is already doing
• The PDM service runs in the cloud, always available, accessible to the whole team without server maintenance
• The interface is conversational first – you describe what you need, the agent acts
• Supporting UI elements buttons, grids, lists, the design structure panel—appear when they are useful, not as the primary way to interact

The agent adapts to the engineer. The engineer does not adapt to the agent.

This is what makes contextual operation meaningful. When you open a file, the agent already knows what file it is, what assembly it belongs to, and what state it is in. Commands like “lock this” or “push my changes” or “show me Revision A” resolve correctly because the agent has the context. You don’t need to navigate to the right folder, find the right record, or select the right item first.

The combination of a conversational interface, deep CAD integration, and cloud-hosted PDM services creates something that has not really existed before: a PDM experience that engineers might actually prefer using.

Engineers Hated PDM. That Is About to Change.

For many years, PDM was the system engineers used because they had to. It protected files. It tracked versions. It stored revisions. And it created enough friction that workarounds—shared drives, email attachments, manual folder naming conventions—became standard practice at companies that technically had a PDM system installed.

CAD File Agent is a different bet. It keeps all the things PDM was actually good at: version control, revision management, dependency tracking, access control, and historical retrieval. It removes what made PDM hard: the setup overhead, the context-switching, the interface that interrupted the engineering workflow instead of supporting it.

The result is a file management experience that lives where engineers work, speaks the language engineers use, and handles the complexity that engineers never wanted to deal with.

If you’ve ever avoided checking something in because it was too much hassle, or lost track of which version was current, or dreaded asking IT to help you get back to an old revision—CAD File Agent is for you.

Want to try it? We’d love to show you how it works for your team.

Contact us at OpenBOM to get started.

Best, Oleg