Siemens Digital Industries Software recently unveiled two new design applications for industrial electrical equipment and automation systems. NX Automation Designer and NX Industrial Electrical Design are expected to enable users to better manage design complexity while improving design quality and minimizing development lifecycles. These two new products are part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, which allows designers to leverage digital twins to access new insights and levels of automation. While these solutions will also be integrated with Siemens’ Teamcenter, the company shared that users can perform electrical and automation design work even without Teamcenter. This means that designers will be able to access the software’s design capabilities without the need for a complete product lifecycle management (PLM) system.
The NX Industrial Electrical Design and NX Automation Designer software portfolio offers a unified multidisciplinary design environment for production systems engineering. The pair provide a host of new functions for the electrical and automation design of industrial equipment. Electrical engineers who use NX Industrial Electrical Design can expect to work more efficiently thanks to enhancements to connection handling and reporting as well as new OOTB symbols for IEC, ANSI, fluidics, and 2D cabinet dimensioning. Meanwhile, automation designers using the NX Automation Designer will benefit from extended capabilities for generating sequences and safety programs.
The NX solutions are scalable and will allow users to start with a single module or combine different modules with each other. While the products can work natively without Teamcenter, Siemens also offers a managed mode where Teamcenter can be running in the background.
Furthermore, the two software packages are equipped with functionalities based on Teamcenter. This includes central management of all data, managed revisions, revision updates, multi-user collaboration, and multi-CAD mechanical integration. They can also be integrated into other Teamcenter-based downstream processes such as BOM upload. This is expected to lower the barrier to entry for integrated electrical and automation design without the need for a PLM system, allowing users to improve their design workflow processes. Organizations also have the option to bring their libraries into Teamcenter later on.
According to Siemens’ Vice President of Digital Engineering Wolfgang Schloegl, the integrated tool chain will accelerate the adoption of digitalization even across small enterprises.
“Through this tool chain, a significant efficiency enhancement can be achieved—in particular, when realizing new products,” he shared.
German machine-builder STiMA was one of the first organizations to use the NX software platforms. The company shared how it was able to combine mechanical, electrical and automation processes into a unified digital environment, allowing it to better manage projects and increase efficiency. STiMA further shared how engineering time has been reduced by about 45 percent thanks to the consistent use of data in various areas.
“Today, in order to maintain profitability, you have to realize more projects with the same number of employees. Furthermore, you need to quickly react to differences in complex customer requirements,” said Karl Stieler, founder of STiMA GmbH & Co. KG. “This means we need the close interaction of mechanical design, electrical design and automation technology.”
For more information, visit the Siemens website.