Electrical upgrade set to boost productivity
An
Autodesk product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jun 7, 2005
Aughinish Alumina, Europe's largest producer of alumina, has invested in AutoCAD Electrical, Autodesk's new electrical design solution.
Aughinish Alumina, Europe's largest producer of alumina, has invested in AutoCAD Electrical, Autodesk's new electrical design solution.
Its senior instrumentation draftsman, John McCarthy, is confident that the software will help his team become more productive, design more accurately, and work at least 25% faster.
The team, based at Aughinish refinery in the Shannon estuary, Ireland, uses AutoCAD Electrical to help install instrumentation in the field, creating schematics for pumps, starters and local power controls.
The engineers and designers had been using AutoCAD, but when projects became larger and the team expanded, it became apparent that an automated solution designed specifically for electrical controls design would bring big efficiencies.
AutoCAD Electrical helps design 2D industrial control systems faster while minimising potential errors.
For example, it lets users automatically generate a complete set of PLC I/O drawings simply by entering the project's I/O assignments in a spreadsheet, saving design time as the need to create these drawings in CAD is eliminated.
It also automatically places sequential or reference-based numbers on all wires and components based on the chosen configuration and detects any clashes.
McCarthy explains that he did a thorough market survey before deciding on AutoCAD Electrical but found other solutions too structured and rigid in what they allowed the user to do.
"However, AutoCAD Electrical is easy to use for anyone who has worked with AutoCAD, it carries the security of the Autodesk name and it means we can still use legacy data", he says.
Another deciding factor was AutoCAD Electrical's comprehensive library of international symbols.
Over the years the Aughinish team had created a large catalogue of symbols and templates using AutoCAD and wanted to be sure these would still be available.
Steve Meyer of AutoCAD Electrical distributor Aceri says that he is seeing increasing demand for the solution from nonelectrical companies such as Aughinish, who are currently relying on generic solutions.
"The cost of upgrading from AutoCAD to AutoCAD Electrical is minimal yet increases in productivity can be huge because of the automation of tedious routine tasks such as manually assigning numbers and tags - and through avoiding potential clashes and mistakes".
"On top of this, for anyone comfortable with AutoCAD it is very easy to use".
"We predict Aughinish Alumina will make further time savings as all the team begin to realise the full potential of the solution".
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