Schematics in hours instead of days

Efficiently Designed Control Cabinets

Along with EPLAN Electric P8 for generating schematics, the electrical design engineers also work with EPLAN Pro Panel Professional for virtual 3D control cabinet engineering. They first use it to create 3D models of nearly every switchgear system based on the schematics from their own design department or – in the case of contract manufacturing – from their client.

“Creating a digital twin in EPLAN Pro Panel considerably simplifies the design and construction of switchgear systems and power distribution systems,” Reigl says. “In addition to collision avoidance and the simple calculation of wire lengths via virtual wiring, the copper module and the direct interface to NC sheet-metal processing machines provide considerable gains in efficiency.” Not least because the NC machine automatically sets the drilling patterns and cut-outs, leading to a massive reduction in processing time while simultaneously avoiding mistakes. This makes a considerable contribution to ensuring the economic future of Klampfer’s control cabinet manufacturing in Austria.

The visualisation available in EPLAN View in the control cabinet workshop also helps to prevent errors. Navigating through a project instead of flipping through a hundred or more pages of paper documents is much easier, and the plans shown from EPLAN Electric P8 and EPLAN Preplanning are always up to date and approved. This helps avoids errors and mistakes, and devices can quickly and easily be searched for. Provided the necessary user rights have been granted, EPLAN View offers access to all the information for the current project. For the future there are plans to switch to the EPLAN eVIEW cloud solution, which has expanded the redlining feature, amongst others.

Generating Instead of Designing

Always on the lookout for opportunities to further increase efficiencies in engineering – and thus offer even more advantages for customers – Reigl was at a trade fair and came across EPLAN Cogineer. This software makes it possible to automatically generate circuit diagrams and fluid diagrams based on EPLAN macros. EPLAN Cogineer has two different work areas for these two separate tasks: “In Designer, you can quickly and intuitively put together a rule set. In Project Builder you can generate the electrical schematics,” says Business Sales Manager Automated Engineering Oliver Bitter at EPLAN. “For users, EPLAN Cogineer automatically creates a user interface without any additional programming.” In addition, order-specific planning data can be imported from upstream process steps.

“I knew the software would be a good fit for us as soon as I saw the presentation at the trade show,” Reigl says. “In EPLAN Cogineer, the previously customary copying and editing of similar partial circuits can be replaced with automatic generation from a modular system.” This considerably reduces the time required and eliminates the possibility of error. Furthermore, working with Project Builder doesn’t require any in-depth knowledge of electrical engineering, so that the tool can also be used later for project planning during the bidding phase. “It wasn’t difficult to persuade upper management about how much sense this investment would make,” Reigl says. “Although I assumed only 60 to 70 per cent interchangeable components, the ROI calculation showed it would pay for itself in less than two years.”

In actuality, however, the repetition factor for power distribution systems is much higher. Although in theory there are 3.8 million circuit variants, in actuality they each have similar power supply inputs, outputs, isolators and control components. Viewed as components that can be placed automatically using Cogineer, they make up 85 to 95 percent of the schematics. This is why Klampfer first used EPLAN Cogineer in this area.

Fully Productive in Just Eight Weeks

There’s no getting around it: preparatory work was needed before Klampfer was able to realise the efficiency gains of automated schematic generation using EPLAN Cogineer. There were already a number of macros in use, but not for everything and not always in the appropriate quality – and of course the rule sets for Project Builder first had to be created.

It took an employee just eight weeks to complete all the preparatory work, and since then Klampfer has been using EPLAN Cogineer to generate schematics for low-voltage main distribution panels. The short-circuit calculation or the one-line diagram shows which components must be installed. Project Builder is then filled with these specifications. After the schematics are automatically generated, control components for connecting and controlling the circuit breakers are added conventionally in EPLAN Electric P8.

Productivity Maximised

“Working with EPLAN Cogineer went perfectly right from the start and enormously sped up the engineering,” Reigl says. “In the past we used to plan for about three days to prepare the schematics for each low-voltage main distribution board. It now takes a colleague just five hours using EPLAN Cogineer.”

Aside from the obvious cost benefits, in conjunction with the reduced probability of errors it also improves the availability of the systems being built, the majority of which are customer specific. “As soon as we have the chance to free up an employee from our flourishing day-to-day business to take care of the preparatory work, our next planned step is to convert the sub-distributors to the more efficient engineering with EPLAN Cogineer,” Reigl says, looking to the future. “With every additional trade that we can depict with it, the greater the benefits of this brilliant software.”

User

G. Klampfer Elektroanlagen GmbH works in the field of technical building services. Founded in 1985 as a sole proprietorship, Klampfer operates with 8 affiliated companies in more than 35 countries and employs around 400 people, 250 of whom work at the headquarters in Leonding, Upper Austria. The company generates annual sales of around 80 million euros, 60 per cent of which comes from their worldwide exports.