Improving Wire Harness Quality for Trains, Planes and Automobiles with E³.cable 2008

March 11, 2008 - Munich, Germany and Westford, MA USA - The 2008 version of the E³.series modules for wire harness design has been dramatically improved to help designers achieve 100% design reliability. E³.cable 2008 brings the introduction of intelligent customized functionality expanding beyond the already strong machinery sector into the automotive and mil/aero industries. These industries will benefit from functionality that enables them to factor in specific design requirements shaped by the physical nature of their end products, industry legislation and safety mandates.

For the design of wire harnesses for cars, trucks and specialized vehicles, the focus is on delivering design time savings by adding industry-specific functionality to eliminate time spent on tedious manual activities. For the design of aeroplanes, helicopters and military applications, the emphasis is on reducing effort, increasing design quality and guaranteeing 100% end product reliability.

A standard car typically has a large number of inliners; placing these within connections historically took several minutes each. In E³.cable 2008, Zuken includes a function that will simply add these and does all the background work; reducing the time to complete these tasks to seconds. Another capability that will benefit all users of E³.cable, particularly those in the automotive sector, is the ability to copy/insert complete sub circuits as an original, allowing users to add system level details without touching the top level and without having to insert sheets manually.

For mil/aero applications that typically feature many parallel connections, designs often appear cluttered where connections are difficult to make; the latest version of E³.cable eliminates this problem by introducing the ability to allow shielded pins in the form of daisy chains. In addition to the aesthetic improvements, this significantly improves design quality and reliability. Specifically for the military sector, users no longer have to use workarounds to display connectors to that conform to industry MIL-standards, as this form of connector symbol display is now just a simple click option.

AREVA Transmission & Distribution Product Line Primary Distribution Systems Agree Global Six-Year E³.series Software Deal with CIM-Team and Zuken

July 31st, 2007 - Munich, Germany and Westford, MA, USA – CIM-Team and parent company Zuken have signed deals to supply E³.series software to AREVA Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Product Line Primary Distribution Systems (PDS). The roll out of E³.series software has begun with full adoption in Germany, France and the UK, with further global expansion planned for the near future. This is estimated to result in the purchase of up to 160 licenses during the course of the initial six-years of this partnership.

AREVA T&D Product Line Primary Distribution Systems is rolling out E³.series software with the objective of having a global approach to ECAD that will enable them to standardize their processes, while allowing for a degree of localized flexibility, drive down costs and allow them to design anywhere and manufacture anywhere. Mr Pfitzenmaier, PDS Director Sales & Engineering Process, explains what this will mean for the Product Line. “This globalized approach to ECAD using E³.series will reap many productivity savings; this not only helps increase efficiency at the design stage, but also provides the extra design and parts information that allows us to refine our production techniques.”

Working with people from Zuken, CIM-Team and a reseller, AREVA T&D completed localized benchmarking exercises in Germany, France and the UK during the first half of 2005. This was proceeded by a common benchmark in June 2005, when the final decision was made to select E³ over competitor solutions. The deciding factors for selecting E³ came down to the solution’s flexibility, ease of use, integration simplicity, and functionality that would allow a multi-user approach with a shared database for all designs and associated parts and components.
“I can see so many benefits and am really looking forward to experiencing the massive money saving benefits that implementing E³.series software will deliver to our design process.” said Mr Pfitzenmaier.

“We needed a solution that would allow us to work faster and more efficiently while guaranteeing high quality. The technological superiority of E³.series will deliver this, plus so much more,” He added.

Together, E³.panel and E³.schematic work hand in hand to provide a comprehensive solution for placement and wiring of devices in panels on mounting plates. AREVA T&D Product Line Primary Distribution Systems will be using these two tools in combination with customized add-ons for designing low voltage transmission and distribution equipment.

CIM-Team and Zuken Launch the 2007 Version of E³.series, Including New Module: E³.formboard

March 27th, 2007 - Munich, Germany and Westford, MA, USA – CIM-Team and parent company, Zuken, the engineering consulting company; have announced the availability of E³.series 2007. The advancements in the latest version of the Windows-based electrical control design and documentation suite include functionality improvements relating to 3rd party integration and increased ease of use and productivity. Most notably, the new version signals the launch of a new formboard module for manufacturing cable harnesses

Improvements in 3rd Party Compatibility
Advancing integration within both the tool flow and 3rd party environments is top of the agenda for CIM-Team and Zuken. The latest version of E³.series includes enhancements to the certified SAP interface, along with support of 3D-MCAD data in STEP AP203/214 Format and MicroStation data. The improved SAP interface allows organizations to quickly and easily modify master records without having to enter the SAP environment. In addition, users can also edit component and classification material master data directly within E³.series using the online synchronization interface.

Having a common data entry area means that component SAP and design data only needs to be entered once, increasing product quality and design efficiency.

The new functionality to output panel data into STEP AP203/214 format enables transferring of design data to create three-dimensional models in 3D-MCAD environments. This allows the user to front load the completion of tasks such as collision checking with mechanical parts, saving valuable time downstream in the design process.

The bi-directional support of DGNdirect data for MicroStation has also been incorporated into the latest version of E³.series. This will allow organizations where MicroStation is dominantly used, to benefit from E³.series’ object orientated technology. Companies in the Civil Engineering, Oceanic and Utilities industries are set to benefit the most from this functionality.

Enhanced Workflow with E3.formboard
To support the custom wire and cable harness market, E³.formboard is being launched. This additional integrated module of the E³.series has been designed for the creation of nailboard displays required in producing wire and cable harnesses. E3.formboard makes it possible to create connector tables automatically, graphically display manufacturing and displayed lengths, apply automatic stretching and compressing to cables, as well as rotate cable branches. As with all other modules in the E³.series, the displayed view data of an object in a project with E3.formboard is always consistent with the schematic and additional documents.

Ease of Use and Productivity
Significant advancements to increased ease of use and productivity, come in the form of the ability to copy, insert and modify structural parts of a project. Using this functionality, entire panels can now be copied repeatedly and adapted to specific requirements. With larger installations, complete machinery and plant structures can be copied.

With “Shared Sheets” in E3.panel, specific regions of different panels can be displayed with individual scaling, making it significantly easier to wire between panels.

The ease of use enhancements detailed in this document cover just a small number of the 50 new functions now available within E³.series 2007.

Congratulations to Pierce Manufacturing -
Named Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year

March 2, 2007, APPLETON, Wis., – Pierce Manufacturing Inc., received the 2006 Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year Award yesterday evening in a ceremony held in Milwaukee, Wis. Pierce pulled in the top honor, winning the Grand Award for excellence in the mega category, representing businesses with 1,000 or more employees. The company earned the recognition for overall outstanding achievement and an exemplary contribution to manufacturing in the state. The award acknowledges the progress and growth at Pierce, as well the hard work and experience of the employees. Pierce Manufacturing used E3 Series Applications, supplied and supported by Caetek Inc, in the design of the new Velocity Fire Truck http://www.piercemfg.com/apparatus/velocity.html

As a leading electrical CAD specialist Caetek Inc offers sales, deployment, intergration and training for the E3 Series product suite.

E3 Series is a suite of integrated, state-of-the-art, Windows®-based design tools for electrical control system design and documentation and is written by CIM-Team (A Zuken Company). Whether it's E3 schematic, for the creation of control schematics, terminal plans, BOMs, & Wire Lists, E3 .panel, for the complete design of control panels, including layouts and wiring, or E3 cable, for the development of detailed wiring, cabling and harness designs, E3 Series makes the process fast, efficient and accurate.

If you would like to save time and money by..:

• Designing electrical engineering projects using the latest ECAD technology
• Using a system with automatic online checks for complete design integrity, reducing the chances of costly errors
• Automating key control system design tasks such as defining wire numbers or component tags according to standards
• Working anywhere within a project without having to follow sequential steps
• Working with standard Windows™ features that have been optimised for electrical engineering
• Constructing cables and harnesses in ECAD
• Creating matching panel and schematic diagrams
• Auto wiring panels in ECAD
• Creating reports which 100% reflect the completed design
• Drastically reduce production costs
• Integrating with MRP, PDM, ERP and other systems

E3 Series features the most advanced, purpose built, E-CAD engine, which is the core on which all the modules are built.

Object-oriented data and the intuitive Windows® user interface, including standard functions such as Drag & Drop, and Copy & Paste, are common to all modules, making E3 Series an easy to learn and cost effective design tool.

The bi-directional COM interface provides direct access to the ODBC data, which can be accessed using the Visual Basic programming interface, allowing for full integration of E3 Series into the engineering process.

E3 Series features the familiar Windows® user interface and includes standard functions such as Drag & Drop, and Copy & Paste, making it an easy to learn and cost effective design tool. These familiar Windows® functions however, have been enhanced to include the underlying intelligence of the objects being manipulated, thus adding to the power of E3 Series. For example, when an existing relay is copied and pasted into a drawing, the database information is carried along with it and the relay ID is updated to the next available number, thereby ensuring the integrity of the design database.