Do you know anyone that owns a classic car? They probably don’t drive it much, usually only a few km a year to go exhibit at a local car show or maybe even just a few meters a year to load on and off a trailer to transport to car shows. The classic car is thus not used day-to-day for regular transportation needs, it has only specialized use.
Why the classic car reference? Well, some software tools that are intended to be used day-to-day end up being used only for specialized purposes. We think this happens because people have spent years doing things they way they do and would like to stick to ‘old reliable’ processes except where it is blatantly obvious that the new tools is best suited for a particular job. The possible return to the company of the affected software tools is drastically reduced by this behavior, since the benefits of the tools are only experienced on occasional jobs instead of all possible jobs the software tool can benefit the company by being used on.
Some folks see a demo of DraftLogic Electrical or are trained on it and then assume that DraftLogic Electrical is suitable only for specific purposes…kind of like that classic car. Well, today I write to let you know that we designed DraftLogic Electrical to provide you advantages on almost every kind of project.
DraftLogic Electrical has six phases of amazing automation: automated room creation, automated electrical device placement, automated circuiting, automated branch circuit wiring, automated floor plans/reports/schedules, and automated export of the entire project into ConEst IntelliBid. What we occasionally fail to communicate is that each of these phases of automation is completely separate and that the data needed for any of the subsequent steps can be generated using other tools that we supply. So, for example, a user can manually prep the architect drawing for use with DraftLogic Electrical, place the electrical systems devices using our tool palettes, and use the Circuit Manager to manually complete all the circuiting. DraftLogic Electrical sees all this completely manually created data as the same as data created by all the automated phases. Subsequent automation works just fine with the manually created data, allowing users to take advantage of the automated branch circuit wiring, automated floor plans/reports/schedules, and automated export of the entire project into ConEst IntelliBid–regardless of how the devices were placed in the drawing and circuited.
And by the way, our ‘manual’ tools are not very manual! DraftLogic Electrical devices know whether they are wall, ceiling, or floor mounted and automatically snap and rotate to reference locations like walls and tbar cells. Tools like auto reload and high volume move and copy tools vastly reduce the number of mouse clicks and keystrokes necessary to get the electrical devices you need into the drawing. DraftLogic Electrical does not do absolutely everything for you and there are some things that we have not attempted to automate, namely high voltage applications and large industrial design needs. The key thing to understand is that even with projects where you will need to use your current tools DraftLogic Electrical can still integrate nicely with that project and deal with all the areas we do well. Any electrical loads, lights, receptacles, motors, panels, special outlets and auxiliary systems we handle efficiently, accurately and effectively.
After training new users on how to take best advantage of our revolutionary building electrical systems design software, DraftLogic Electrical, we know that it is absolutely vital that they use it as much as possible in order for the the training to have been useful. There is a direct and strong relationship between familiarity with a software tool and the benefit that one can gain from it. So even in the very unlikely scenario where using DraftLogic Electrical has the same productivity as your current processes in doing a project, there is benefit in using it due to the experience that the designer gains, thus improving performance on subsequent projects.
Are there needs you have on a project and you are not sure how DraftLogic Electrical can meet them? Call or email me and if I can’t show you how DraftLogic Electrical can meet that need now, our development team will quickly add the needed functionality!
Kindest Regards,
Dean Whitford
Chief Operating Officer
DraftLogic Electrical
dwhitford@draftlogic.com