When Land Rover decided to install a new production line at its automobile plant in Solihull, England, it also decided to standardize on one electrical design and documentation package. Land Rover has been using AutoCad for design, but coordinating this with the company''s subcontractors was becoming unmanageable.
"Up to now we have used AutoCAD for electrical as well as mechanical systems," said John Bragg, electrical engineer in the Technical Services Department at Land Rover. "But there are many different versions and add-on packages in use by subcontractors. There were even some non-AutoCAD solutions, and coordinating this was a nightmare. It was impossible to have every version of every package available on site."
Land Rover decided that standardization was the only way to sensibly address this issue and began to evaluate electrical design packages. After assessing Rockwell Automation RSWire, they immediately liked the fact that the software was based on AutoCAD, and would be very easy to learn and immediately familiar to anyone who knew AutoCAD. Perhaps the main reason for deciding on RSWire, though, was that Rockwell Automation offered a complete design solution.
Rockwell Automation assisted Land Rover in creating an electrical specification CD for use with RSWire, with Land Rover sheet formats, symbol sets, database information, and all the required report formats. This makes it easy for Land Rover to manage drawings and documentation and ensures that all deliverables have the same look and feel, independent of the supplier.
Drawing management was also a very important issue for Land Rover. It is vital for Land Rover to keep the drawings and documentation from all suppliers up to date and be able to transfer them quickly back and forth if design changes take place.
"In the past," said John Bragg, "we have had companies prepare quotations from what they believed was the master drawing, only to find that when they started work, the system had changed since their drawing was done. Perhaps I/O on a PLC that they thought was available had been used already. In some cases extra orders had to be raised to cover extra hardware. Now that we have standardized, this should not be a problem."
RSWire was chosen because it can use existing symbol libraries from AutoCAD and is extremely easy to learn and use. Land Rover had six engineers fully trained on RSWire and because of the familiarity with AutoCAD, it was easy for them to develop their skills.
Design changes are easy to make, with any cross-referencing changes across many different drawings being updated online. The preview page facility in RSWire means that it is not necessary to open a drawing only to find that it is not the one you were looking for. The automatic generation of reports, using the standard formats provided on the Land Rover CD, means that once design changes are made the documentation can be updated at the push of a button. This makes document management quick and easy.
The first major subcontractor to use the new electrical standard is Kesan Automation of Dudley. A long-term supplier to Land Rover, they had not used RSWire before, having traditionally used an alternative electrical design package frequently used in the automotive industry.
For the new project, Kesan is a primary contractor, responsible for providing control systems for the doors'' on/off assembly, pre-trim assembly, door seal and front-end conveyors. After initial training by Rockwell Automation, they were issued with the Land Rover electrical specification CD for RSWire, which contains the new standard Land Rover information. This is loaded over the RSWire install and replicates the program setup that Land Rover wishes their suppliers to use.
Considering that this is the first time that the new standardized procedures have been used and that Kesan engineers have not used RSWire before, there have been very few problems with the electrical design package. Eight major panels and some smaller ones containing PLCs and control gear from a variety of different manufacturers have been designed and laid out using RSWire.
"After only three days'' training, we created a 200-page project in just two weeks. I don''t believe it would have been possible to complete such a complex project in such a short time scale with other systems," said Lee Plant, drawing office manager.
Kesan engineers particularly appreciated the short learning curve and the features that they are already familiar with from AutoCAD, like the ''hot keys.'' They found symbols, sheet borders, and I/O cards very simple to create and liked the similarity to AutoCAD in terms of its general look and feel.
"We will favor training up new engineers on RSWire because of the short learning curve as compared with other systems," said Lee Plant, who has also identified a number of other key benefits. "If an error is made when using RSWire, the online error checker immediately tells you there is a potential problem. Also, our control panel manufacturing team like the new Land Rover specified drawings. They are a good size with clear text and are easy to follow.
"The RSWire electrical standards CD provided by Land Rover for sheet borders, symbols, database information, and reports made the project easier to create and this CD will only improve as Land Rover add more data. Other popular features are that cable schedules are easy to create and terminal plan generation is straightforward."