previously on a digital journey we found
out what happens when you get a chance
to make a bit really fast and how hard
it can be to meet all the requirements
the risk of losing a bid and the
constant pressure to deal with a deluge
of information and we looked at some new
ideas we looked at a way to create an
abstract version of a crushing machine
that allowed us to connect parts
functions and schematics and expand on
each at will we looked at how to bring
all of these disks all of these
different parts together with a pre
planning tool and generate a concise
estimate that updates automatically when
you add or subtract objects to the
machine we showed that when we plan the
objects of our design around a database
that links parts and functions yeah
which is the engine that drives this
EPLAN platform you absolutely can take a
project any project and bid it fast we
did and we got the job hey it's going to
be smooth sailing from here on now hello
everyone and welcome to the second
episode of a digital journey it's a 12
part series exploring how to do stuff a
little faster hopefully a little better
with less effort I will be your
moderator Andrew Fortenberry after the
episode we will have a Q&A session so
during this episode please post any
questions in the chat and we will be
sure to answer them today we will look
at how to deal with a bunch of parts
that a customer must have some the
reasons behind these requirements and
what methods we can bring it to bear I
believe mr. Sergio Brickhouse has some
insights on this so Sergio passing the
ball in your court thank you Andrew and
thank you everyone for attending and
yeah let's get this show on the road
all right so congratulations of course
in effect the bid has been accepted the
offer has been
during the procedure though we notice a
few hurdles that might get in the way of
a successful project right so they want
their documentation to look a certain
way no not a problem they also want a
particular set of device symbol
representations all right check as well
as the massive list of components that
they must have yeah that's not an issue
the reason for the the lists varies from
national regulations such as norms and
standards or devices that were tested
and approved as well as the assurance
that these can be easily adjusted or
changed as easy as possible in the case
of you know interchangeability or maybe
just plain ol habit so a lot of
companies are at least most have an
approved vendor list and an approved
component list this is required for
access a successful bid so the reason
for these lists varies and so forth as
we mentioned earlier so and also this
list varies from vendor types as well as
you know certain devices that can go
from 1,000 to 10,000 zuv in the
individual parts so a lot of things to
take into consideration in this
particular environment alright so you
combine all of this with the very real
pressures of price project schedule and
doing all of the other little tidbits in
one's job the act of sorting through the
parts and to get you know can get really
overwhelming designers and project
management will push back because they
don't have time to do everything as a
result the project gets delayed and
frustrations melt when there is enough
risk of missing a deadline or losing a
bid the typical reaction is to assign
the work to a specialist the only person
that only procures material so basically
we're looking into getting purchasing
agents
the purchasing agent doesn't necessarily
understand the function of the part but
he or she established a relationship
with the vendor to get the best price
and the best availability this method
actually works to a point and the point
usually when purchasing agents run out
of the capacity and when the project
needs a new series of parts that are
unfamiliar to the purchasing agent well
then a few options arise so keep hiring
new purchasing agents or restrict the
number of parts available in either case
the purchasing department will start
evolving and develop its own rules and
Wale a similar pressures a typical
management response for the additional
work is to add more staff financially
possible and then eventually the parts
start taking longer to process projects
take longer to to bid and frustration
returns and and so and so forth so if
you can relieve some of the stresses of
repetitive work to search for parts and
to fit that fit your design your price
and ultimately when your customer wants
regardless if it's something that
purchasing hasn't seen before when they
got the quote so you can win yourself a
lot of breathing room and get a lot of
work done faster and easier all right so
to recap it comes in we canna list the
components run it through the e plan
blender supreme and voila
no more pain no more hassles and at
least for the very least at least less
things to worry about right so here's
added just you know due to the fact that
you have a stress-free environment
hopefully all right so let's take a look
at this and how it all works out so what
we have here is of course or project we
know we the the bid came in for this
particular machine type we talked about
it last week and of course now we have
an approved component list so what can
we do with this so usually these lists
are most typically found in Excel
spreadsheets or text files and whatnot
so these lists of course one of the
aspects that we can utilize these lists
are in our a plan environment are to
first confirm prior to doing that
prior to doing some of the schematic
work and even the panel layout is to
confirm that these parts exist in my
parts database of course the typical
work work through or workload would be
to go through a catalog confirm that
these parts are in our system so that we
have all the aspects to be able to use
so one of these tools that we have in
place an e plan of course is to be able
to confirm this alongside the data
portal now the data portal having two
tiers of functionality functionality the
free tier and the professional tier in
the professional tier but you can do is
you can actually go into your shopping
cart and you have the option to upload a
list of components so or approve
component lists can be uploaded to the
data portal confirm if these parts are
available and to actually add them into
your parts database so you can start to
do your design so we can select here the
functionality we can choose a file and
of course this file would be in a CSV
format so if you got an Excel
spreadsheet you can just you know resave
that as a CSV and basically what we're
gonna do from this point is select this
file and upload it to the data portal so
what happens next and of course we can
choose here to delete the shopping cart
in case you did this in the past so just
to make sure you always start from a
clean shopping cart inside the data
portal environment so when we hit submit
here what what happens now is that the
system checks based on that list that
you uploaded and it's stated you have 57
records of which 50 parts were found in
the data portal so he can show you here
is giving you a list of all the
components he found and the beauty of
this feature functionality of course is
the benefit that you know for a fact
that you'll only have to maybe produce
seven components yes there might be some
part data that you need to to add in but
in this particular case here of course
this is very minimal work in the sense
that you just have to create seven parts
so the next step here from a user
standpoint is I'm going to submit this
and now this list of components gets
added to my shopping cart depending on
the account or the user account that
you're using of course now since I have
this information here I can now validate
so obviously the the accepted vendor
list that we received might not
necessarily contain quantity so we know
we need certain parts that were approved
but we might not have the quantity so
what we can do in this space here is add
how many parts we want so I can say I
want two of these three of these four of
these and so on so forth so you can
actually locate the quantity that you
need for this particular project so of
course in this environment once that's
accepted what we can then do from the
EPLAN data portal environment we can if
we go here to our device list so device
list navigator what we can do here
there's a feature that we can that will
allow us to import these parts from the
data portal into of course into my parts
database so I can import all 50 parts
which I already have done and previously
so I'm not going to take too much time
but basically it's just a question of
clicking on these features so that all
those parts get downloaded into your
parts database what you can do next is
basically add those lists or those
devices to your devices by doing so this
actually adds the quantity so you have
the quantity used and the part number in
accordance which has already been
imported into your parts database and of
course from this space here I can open
up a schematic sheet and start to place
components so right click here or drag
and drop whichever one you like insert
device and of course here I can start to
place my components and you'll notice
that the sparrow count drops right the
benefit of this feature functionality as
well every from a user standpoint is as
I'm inserting these components my list
of devices now will let me know okay
we're here down to zero these this is
what you the list of parts that you
wanted with the quantity
but if I make a mistake and I actually
insert a third one so I add more than I
previously stated the system will flag
you with a warning saying wait wait wait
wait a minute there's something wrong
here take a look and see and this
actually also pops up in the error
message check that you'll do in your
project if the case may be so it's a
good way to validate the parts that are
being used in accordance to the
allocated parts that you need for this
project to make sure that you know you
don't make any mistakes so if I delete
this here and i refresh this with f5
then I'm back to zero all my parts are
been used and so so forth so that's one
way to proceed on that aspect and of
course the benefit here is that we
grabbed that that approved component
list and of course from that approved
component list what ends up happening is
that we now know which parts we should
be using so that's one aspect that we
can use using the data portal to
validate now once we have those parts
inside or EPLAN environment what we can
do next is we can start to use them and
build or project as I demonstrated
another feature that we also have that
can also be used in in accordance or in
correlation with the approved vendor
list is to be able to import those into
my project into my device navigator so
in my project data on their devices here
I have the import functionality so this
is another way of proceeding that you
can use as well because obviously in the
case where you already have those parts
in your parts database and you don't
need to go through the data portal you
can always proceed in this order using
that approve component list so I'll
select from that excel spreadsheet in
okay insert now what's gonna happen is
that the system is gonna validate those
parts and of course is gonna validate in
accordance to the part database that you
have in your involvement and it's gonna
let you know which parts get imported
which which parts don't right
so one of these aspects here that we can
do next is obviously import these in and
if I look at my device navigator here
those components were will be added in
and of course what we can use this for
maybe in a panel environment so we do
have cases where we have panel shops
that receive a component lists but don't
not they don't necessarily need to
produce the schematics so we've had
these cases where customers that are
panel shops letting us know listen I
don't need to do the schematics
I just basically need to do the design
of the panel and hand that out to my
customer with the list of components
that he selected so obviously in this
particular case since I imported that
approved component list into my device
navigator
I now have those components and I can
actually go ahead and import insert them
so I can actually go here to my 3d panel
mounting layout navigator see all the
components that were imported in this is
just my validation with my advice
navigator and I can actually go here
grab that component drag and drop it
into my panel design and of course due
to the fact that I downloaded this
information from the data portal a lot
of validation has been added to this
device and of course this device comes
in with maybe drooling information so
here I have the drill data showing me
some drill information and it might also
contain connection point for my wire so
when I'm going to be routing this device
we're using my different tools available
in e plan in the pro panel space this
actually has a lot of benefits so
grabbing my approved vendor list running
it through the data portal validating
checking if it's there downloading those
parts into my parts database then
importing that into my device navigator
with those components that have been
already downloaded and that I have
accessible in my parts management
environment will allow me to produce a
product and design a lot quicker and a
lot faster
another benefit of using these tools of
course is that after the fact what I can
do is once I have this done
I can export this information in an
Excel spreadsheet maybe to run it and
validate for pricing and cost estimates
using tools such as proposal works if
those there's other tools out there but
I'm taking proposal works as an example
what I can do is once that list has been
generated if I go to proposal works I
have the capability of importing an
Excel spreadsheet so this Excel
spreadsheet being generated by an e plan
space I can now run it through this
environment here and of course having
that information available it can it'll
now validate through the proposal works
tool and give me a cost estimate as
opposed the in regards of the components
that I've selected if those components
are available in this space so it's a
nice little way to actually grab stuff
grab that data as we talked about in the
first episode and due to the fact that
we had digitalized this data I can now
massage it and use it in multiple facets
I can as you can see here I'm using it
in this environment so the benefit of
course is that having access to other
tools and being able to do this seamless
thing very easily with other tools it's
simple for me to see here running it
through the proposal works of course not
all parts may be are found in this
environment so I can actually I have
fields in here where I can start to
input data
maybe margins of percentage this is all
you know unique to every user that has
certain percentages and whatnot but it's
kind of giving me a rough estimate of
the of the pricing today so this is the
manufactured no what is it this is them
the manufacturers I guess suggested
retail price but of course there's
percentages and stuff that you can play
around with here in this space but the
idea behind this is basically grabbing
that data running it through other
applications seamlessly and easily in
this in this fashion all right so on
that note we'll move into that Q&A
sérgio thank you so much now we shall
swiftly and quickly move into our Q&A
segment and the first question is what
kind of databases can I use so in the
aspect of databases for Part A we
recommend SQL obviously so in the
utilities parts management tool we do
have the capability of creating a parts
management environment we're using the e
plan interface but the file format that
we store the data in can be either an
Access database of course access is kind
of making its way out as we all know
we've we're hearing the news and of
course Microsoft is focusing more on
their SQL Express environment which is
actually free so it's beneficial and the
queries are quicker the indexing is a
lot faster access also has a whole bunch
of limitations so all tools out there
whether it be Autodesk whether they be
you know you know mentor or any other
tools out there SolidWorks they're all
migrating over to SQL so we recommend
SQL but of course you can use access as
well
Thank You Thank You Sergio next question
is there a way to use the same database
and filter parts with a set of criteria
yes so ideally there are tons of filter
capabilities in E plan and that's the
benefit of having a tool that's database
driven due to the fact that indexing is
is very is possible and filtering is
very possible so using here like the
parts management navigator I do have a
field based filter that I can create so
I can filter out for specific vendor
specific part types it's just it that
you know the filtering capabilities are
so vast that you know there's just so
much you can do so yes filtering
functionality is is not a problem all
the properties are indexed labeled and
and identified so when you use them for
filter purposes in your particular
navigators
it's super simple to you thank you for
the clarification so question number
three what else can you do with propane
oh there's tons I mean we can actually
grab that information from the pro panel
space since we have that detailed part
information that has been actually
classified or identified by a procedure
called eClass watt so it's much more of
a of a standard or a format if you will
that is globally known eClass is
something that that is that really
allows the manufacturer to really have a
high level of detail like cavity size
and and wire direction and heat
dissipation information this benefits
the user when they're using Pro panel to
be able to export this information to
different machine types so and see
drilling machines copper bending tools
maybe pipe bending tools creating
drilling templates if people don't have
access to these machines and of course
this is beneficial PDF print on a
plotter tape over the back plate no
longer do you have to do masking tape
Sharpie pen and rulers anymore you have
wire export capabilities so we have from
to data when we basically create our
routes between components and these this
detailed information can be exported we
also have even exports to the smart
wiring application which we will touch
upon eventually and of course so much
can be done in the pro panel space to
reduce the time reduce the costs and
make you more efficient company thank
you for and that detailed explanation on
that so the last question that we have
if there's any other questions please
shoot me a question
drop a question in the Q&A box so the
last question that we have is this pro
panel need a separate license can I also
combine the pro panel license with an
existing license or licenses yeah well
yeah so it's it's very modular EPLAN as
has been known for its modularity and of
course you can either buy it as
a standalone package or you can purchase
it as an add-on so this is all something
that's relative to your needs and use
and of course if you need additional
features can always be tacked on so this
could probably be something that you can
look more or get more information from
your set local sales reps and they'll be
happy to fill you in with all the
detailed data
sérgio thank you so much
ah we have another question what happens
when a component is not on the data
portal or on the date of portal but does
not have a 3d macro right so what
happens is that the component itself
does have with high depth so ideally
what happens in the data portal
environment is if the man since the
manufacturer is responsible for creating
the data well depending on certain
manufacturers and their workloads they
might not put the 3d information but
they will put the width height depth we
do have an e plan data portal standard
that just came out it's a it's a new
standard that all manufacturers have to
abide by and that's starting to trickle
down so a lot of the data in
requirements has to now be enforced so
3d information with high depth mounting
clearance for heat dissipation zones and
whatnot but if you if you are creating a
part from scratch that is not in the
data portal you can add with high depth
this is gonna create a cube for the
footprint because ideally what's
important for you is the footprint and
of course this footprint you can
allocate an image file so this texture
section here will display the image into
that cube on the face so at least when
you generate the model view to see the
2d representation of this 3d panel
you'll have a lot more detailed
clarified data so you do have the
capability of creating your part if you
do have a step file that you found
through the manufacturers website that
is not on the data portal you can import
that 3d graphic create a macro out of it
assign
logic information and tie to your parts
database thank you for that explanation
Sergio are there any additional
questions that there's particular time
[Music]
now that we have unfortunately ran out
of time this concludes episode 2 of a
digital journey a 12 part series
exploring how to do stuff a little
faster hopefully a little better and
with a little less effort hope you
enjoyed it make sure to follow us on
LinkedIn I EPLAN USA
if you post share anything about today's
journey do a hashtag EPLAN digital
journey 102 as this the second amazing
episode now of course you know we gotta
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is also posted on the screen sérgio
thank you so much for being an amazing
performer also aka mr. Chapman
Christopher Audra have been your
moderator Andrew Fortenberry be good to
each other as always see you next week