1. Sales and Construction in One Package: osCAS Saves 80%
Engineering Base makes it particularly easy for project planners to consistently configure and document machines and entire plants from the design to the sales stages including all changes and the corresponding cost estimates. The modern platform enables an integral solution where working with functional modules is the basic requirement for optimizing the work and material expenditure. Once the preparatory work has been done in Engineering Base and the EB library is filled with standardized modules and system components, then the usefulness of this object-oriented and database-driven tools goes decisive 7 steps further: |
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2. Infrastructure Planning: Consistency Thanks to Database
General diagrams, hall superstructures, machine representations and route tracings were hitherto created without taking into account the required equipment. For the commissioning and later on maintenance tasks consistency of the documentation is indispensable, however. The EB database model is equipped with all prerequisites needed for working with different plant views. Be it single-lines, cable run drawings or plant overviews: all planning jobs required in machine and plant construction can be carried out – and that without multiple entries or the otherwise common data discontinuities. Functions and equipment can e.g. be planned directly in or linked to imported machine drawings or hall plans. The EB navigation function provides quick movement in the most varied types of documentation. |
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3. Ascertainment of Demand: Automatic (Cost) Adaptation with Delta Management
Different clients in international markets mean varying requirements and the use of different electrical and mechanical modules. In order for the diverse suppliers not to become a calculatory risk, Engineering Base determines the module-oriented costs and stores them in the database for later comparison. After the initial calculation, all materials not yet sufficiently specified in the offer can be recorded. This list of materials can be completed via the built-in ERP system or supplier specifications and can then – using the item name – be matched with the engineering data. Here EB autonomously supplements the supplied technical data online in a way traceable via an integrated delta management. |
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4. Machine Interface for Integrating External Package Units
The integration of supplier data into the plant documentation remains an special challenge even today, and many plants exhibit incompletely documented machine or system components at the supply limits. Navigation spanning limits of supply was up to now not possible. Therefore Aucotec's novel machine interface for the integration of external machine projects into the superordinate plant design offers a genuine specialty. The so-called "package units" can be managed and versioned separately yet communicate with the complete plant by means of intelligent adapters. When a supplied subproject is changed, the data unit in question can simply be exchanged, the interfaces defined for the total plant are kept. Thanks to the database concept of Engineering Base it is possible to subdivide system components into arbitrarily large data units and to link them to each other. |
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5. Whether PLC and Bus Configuration or Software Generation: Everything is Automatic
Merging the hardware, the software product and the configuration in control technique is an essential requirement of the mechatronic engineering approach. This concerns among other things the automated transfer of the address assignment resulting from the electrotechnical planning and the hardware requirements for the control or the representation of the bus topology. A special requirement is an automated creation of the software components. Based on a high degree of standardization, the EB wizards achieve the fastest possible I/O configuration even without opening a circuit diagram. They create hardware addresses depending on the chosen control supplier as well as the I/O assignment. A bus plan generator assigns the bus addresses and automatically specifies the bus cabling. When standardized function modules are defined as an instruction list, EB can automatically generate the software. |
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6. Automatic Conversion of Standards: Just Switch Over
With Engineering Base it is easy to switch anytime over to alternative designation rules of the respective customer and back again. This spares you the tremendous effort it otherwise costs to adapt a documentation. It is even easier – and takes just one mouse click – to automatically convert the circuit diagram display from IEC to JIC/ANSI. Customer-friendly documentations for other regional standards can thus be viewed and edited without spending time and money unnecessarily. All this can be done on the basis of a single standard. |
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7. Post-Calculation, Transparent Comparison: The Costs Always at a Glance
The seventh step of EB leads to transparent comparisons and post-calculations. The tool automatically creates a result for the post-calculation using the components actually used and their prices; it does this by taking into account the ascertainment of demand. Differences between the offer and the actual costs or even the complete price trend developing in the course of the engineering process can be traced immediately and are stored in a transparent manner on the basis of an alphanumeric revision management. The costs can be viewed in different categories such as engineering, hardware and assembly costs. In the revision management moreover all other data of a project such as parts lists, wiring lists and cable lists can be compared. This in turn enables specific manufacturing orders. |
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Manufacturing Documents Complement the Total Project
For manufacturing and assembly the system offers a special cabinet solution: After specification of the modules such as mounting plates or cabinet doors in the EB cabinet layout, the components can be assembled by means of the 3-D cabinet configurator. With the configurator, every designer can easily create an electrical cabinet "ready for mounting" as a 3-D model using e.g. SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor – special knowledge of 3-D CAD systems is not required. EB's integrated automated routing routine determines the required lengths and the routing of the wires to be laid in the cabinet. Lines with large cross sections can also be laid manually in a 3-D system. The required line length is then automatically transmitted by Aucotec to EB thanks to a special routing interface. Last but not least the drilling scheme can be output as a printout or as a job file to a manufacturing machine such as Perforex from Kiesling. The wiring list with all of the assembly information and mounting materials can moreover be transmitted to the appropriate automats from CadCabel, Komax or Metzner. EB offers cutting or cable length tables "at the push of a button".
Thus the future-oriented Engineering Base presents itself as the tool actually doing justice to the much-cited slogan "concurrent engineering". The entire 7-point chain where planning, design and sale are so intimately interlinked enables a hitherto unknown efficiency and customer reach in project development. |
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