iDea Next Level Proof of Concept

[Henk-Jan Scholman]

This is a project to investigate if the Merkato product configurator software can be used to built an engineering configurator. This would give us a tool to define engineering rules and product structure hidden by a Graphical User Interface. Its output can be used to feed (E)CAD systems and generate design documents (like wiring diagrams, software code or 3D mechanical models).



Who's participating:

www.klein-bl.de
www.mphoch3.de
www.ideci.nl

[Henk-Jan Scholman]

Progress is slow but sure.

Work Brake Down structure / mindmap showing features (use cases) in pink and tasks in yellow:


Screenshot of configurator. Left side is where you can build a system structure through multiple aspects (in line with 81346): functional, electrical product, mechanical product, software product, location.

Here's where you can define the system: what customer standard to use, what structures (aspects) to enable


Here's how a a drive configuration could look like (the options presented depend on the variants that are supported by the customer standard)


This is how the template of that configuration looks like (this is only for the programmer of the configurator to be seen)

[Henk-Jan Scholman]

This diagram shows how options in the user interface relate to variants in wiring diagrams:



We target at EPLAN and CEE Electrical as first ECAD platforms to interface with iDea.

But it can be combined with any engineering software that is open to data exchange.