EPICommunity

Aucotec has Engineering Base which they promote as an 'engineering platform for highly efficient cooperation'. I have no experience with this tool (but I'm invited for a demo next week), but they seem to have at least a few things right:

• it has IEC81346 in its DNA

• it support bi-directional data-exchange (so from one discipline to the other and vice versa)

• it has build in data consistency check

I'm eager to see more of it in next week's demo; see how it relates to EPLAN EEC Pro.

Any one ever did an implementation?

No experience; I only know that this program is very dependent on Microsoft.
Namely Visio and SQL ... .. I do not know if this is wise?

It is... but I don't see that as a problem (while typing this on my Windows 10 driven laptop...).

Using Visio as a graphical editor/configurator is actually an idea I've considered also: to be used on top of EPLAN EEC.

Had a demo of Engineering Base at www.betagraphic.nl .

This is what I like about it:

• it puts the data/product model first, the output/presentation second: all drawings etc. are just different views on the data of the product model in the database

• it is bi-directional: a change in a (electrical) drawing appears instantly in an other (cabinet layout, P&ID, Loop diagram, Plant floor layout) drawing

• it is quite 'open'; MS SQL database. You can build your own add-ons

• it comes with pre-defined, IEC81346 inspired, database structure + document templates (don't know about libraries for things like electrical components)

• you can make as many '(customer) standards' as you like

• you can make make and manage 'specials' per project

• drawings are not 'generated', rather 'instantiated': they are just templates filled with data

• there are some clever import tools which enable you to import existing drawings and, at least for a part, map these to the datamodel

• ...

This is what I like less:

• there's no way to define 'rules'. Though it does support options&variants, you can not define rules to exclude one option when it is not compatible with an other option. Meaning; an engineer still needs to have detailed knowledge about the typicals being used.

• It really could use a configurator with proper GUI-editor to tackle the above. With that you could make a huge improvement in engineering efficiency while at the same time hide the complexity for the 'traditional' engineer. That would also improve the acceptance of a tool like this. They have done implementations where a (sales) configurator (like Tacton) is linked to EB.

• it is not available as a cloud solution

• it should support EPLAN EEC One. Should not be to difficult though to make a XML/XLS template for that.

• ...

I visited DS Services on invitation of Charles, last wednesday. They use engineering base for the electrical engineering of their latest print process line. Also talked to the electrical engineers and they confirmed it is a complete different approach to engineering then 'drawing' in Autocad or EPLAN P8. They would not want to go back to that way of work.