The operational scope of the first Engineering Base special branch solution for process control technology, Engineering Base Instrumentation, extends over the entire engineering process, starting with plant design and cost estimation, the creation of pipes and instrumentation (P&I) diagrams, the device specification and ordering including detailed engineering as well as the assignment and wiring of machine and plant components. Thus Engineering Base is one of the few systems enabling consistent plant engineering for control and electrotechnical planning based on a common data stock.

Special Branch Solution: Object-Oriented and Database-Driven
Engineering Base Instrumentation special emphasis on flexibility and universal use combined with quick familiarization. Uncompromisingly process-oriented, Engineering Base stores all projecting data in a database and offers comfortable editing via explorer, graphics and tabular access. A unique property is the consistent use of standard Microsoft tools: For the creation and editing of graphic representations, MS Office Visio has been integrated. In addition there are the Microsoft SQL server as reliable database and VBA, a well-known Office product, as programming language for customer-specific solutions.

Branch-specific supplements render Engineering Base, in the manner of an instrumentation tool, a unique offer for plant design in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry, in power plant construction and primary industry and also for other process-oriented industrial sectors. Such supplements comprise e.g. the coupling to the layout program Conval, the possibility to store calculated data directly with the Engineering Base objects in the database as well as the online integration with process engineering, with HMI systems such as WinCC from Siemens and with field bus and control system engineering tools.

A special highlight is the wiring and option: here it is e.g. possible to use Engineering Base to create complete distributor diagrams on the basis of the real time wiring concept using practice-oriented assignment data. The adjustment of the wiring data with the process control loops is effected online and automatically. This is based on the consistent use of the object concept also for connections and wirings, which can thus be arbitrarily represented and edited.

New Standards, New Trends
Engineering Base sets new standards for the support of current industrial standards. For the classification of the device data, one can switch between different classification methods such as  eCl@ss, IEC or ISA S.20 while editing the data. Engineering Base Instrumentation follows the specifications set in the respective standards also with respect to the property bars used as defaults.

The representation of current labeling systems of ISA, IEC 61346 or KKS (common in power plant construction) is supported, the IEC 61346 was the basis for the Engineering Base system design.