Editor’s Pick: Mechatronic design for multidisciplinary collaboration

Siemens announces two new software suites in the NX ecosystem, NX Automation Designer and NX Industrial Electrical Design. Siemens says the two suites provide a central design application for industrial electrical and automation design. 

Both suites are compatible with the NX and Teamcenter platforms, providing users with a unified multidisciplinary design environment for production systems engineering. 

The company says the duo enables NX users to get started in the world of functional design, by enabling electrical and automation design work without a direct connection to Teamcenter. Siemens says this allows customers not looking for a complete PLM system to benefit from the interdisciplinary design capabilities. 

STiMA GmbH was involved with early testing of the two suites. “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,” says Karl Stieler, Owner STiMA GmbH & Co. KG. 

“This means we need the close interaction of mechanical design, electrical design and automation technology. We are perfectly prepared for the future and its challenges on the market with this solution by Siemens,” Stieler adds.

STiMA adds that it reduced engineering time by 45% through the use of data consistency and a more efficient workflow while using the two new suites.

NX Automation Designer allows the import of existing Siemens TIA (Totally Integrated Automation) Portal libraries and data. It offers rules-based PLC code creation, and code-less import/export of software and hardware components to the TIA Portal. 

Products can be assigned to single connections, and the connected products become part of standard product handling and workflow. Connection and wiring information is documented with the new standard report documents connection list, connection BOM, matrix terminal diagram and cable list. 

Binary logic code can be created directly in NX Automation Designer. State chart code and machine sequences can be added to the TIA portal. 

NX Industrial Electrical Design expands electrical design capabilities with extensions to manage connected products. Products can now be assigned to a single connection, and the connected products are part of the standard workflows, all the way through to BOM creation. 

Industrial electrical design is also enhanced by an extended library of symbols, including those from International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). 

NX Automation Designer and NX Industrial Electrical Design are now available directly from Siemens or its authorized dealers. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website. 

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