PCS-Engineering relies on CADMATIC Electrical for electrical and automation design in the process industry

"An engineer aims to work smart. Instead of performing repetitive tasks manually, they prefer to take a moment to think about how manual work can be automated and unnecessary steps eliminated. Work is wasted when the same task is repeated in multiple places", Project Manager, Electrification & Instrumentation Specialist Pauli Pitkälä from PCS-Engineering describes.

Nowadays, such large complexities are managed in electrical engineering that the importance of managing design data has become even more paramount. PCS-Engineering specializes in electrical, instrumentation, and automation design for the process industry and possesses extensive experience in the efficient execution of large-scale projects. Through this experience, they have recognized that without database-based design software, it’s challenging to execute today’s projects flexibly and efficiently.

“The volume of design data is enormous nowadays. When some details change during the design process, do you remember to keep all the documentation up to date? With database-based design, you can trust that the data is up to date”, says Pitkälä.

More flexible design and quality in project execution

It is typical that some changes are needed at different stages of the design process. CADMATIC Electrical’s database functionalities enable users to mass edit design data, making it easy to implement changes requested by the customer.

“In projects, it is often necessary to customize lists and images according to the customer’s wishes. Through the database, these changes can be made to the documentation quite smoothly, making the documentation serve the customer even better”, describes Teemu Partanen, the Chief Engineer of Electrification and Instrumentation and key user of Cadmatic in PCS-Engineering.

Mass editing functionalities also allow the design process to begin even if all the project’s details have not yet been finalized. As the details become available, updates can be made to the database where they automatically flow to all project documents.

“We often have to start the design process even before certain details, like the specific devices, are known. For example, we can begin designing circuit diagrams before knowing what device or type of control panel will be used. Once the information is confirmed, it is then updated in the database and the plans”, Partanen explains.

Why CADMATIC Electrical?

When asked about the reasons why CADMATIC Electrical was chosen as a design tool for PCS-Engineering, in addition to the earlier previously mentioned database functionalities, the automatic creation of images with modular generation stands out.

“Although lists are primarily important to customers, there is a need for graphical representations in the sites which can efficiently be produced with modular generation. Additionally, it enables the detection and troubleshooting of drawing and technical database errors while creating the modules. This way, designers can be given functional modules to use, making their design more efficient and error-free”, Partanen says.

Diverse customer projects also create requirements for the software as it needs to support the execution of various design projects. CADMATIC Electrical’s ability to facilitate different aspects of electrical, instrumentation, and automation design enables projects to be completed from start to finish with a single design software.

“In our process industry instrumentation and electrification projects, the software must have extensive functions for creating different documents to execute projects with only one tool”, Partanen explains.

When comparing various electrical design software, these features made CADMATIC Electrical a competitive solution for PCS-Engineering. The software's cost-effectiveness, extensive functionality for creating various documents, and automatic generation of graphical representations influenced the final decision on why CADMATIC Electrical is a good solution for PCS-Engineering.

“If we had chosen another software, we would still have needed an additional software for creating for example layout documents”, Pitkälä adds.