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.
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.
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.
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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