Farmet a. s.: Eplan and its flowcharts are the birth certificate of every project
The company, which develops, manufactures, sells, and services agricultural machinery and technology for oilseed processing, aims to deliver unique technical solutions based on the customer's exact requirements. It is in the development of this equipment that the Eplan solution set gives them a competitive advantage, exponentially speeding up the new equipment's journey to the customer already in the development phase.
Solutions tailored to the client's needs
Česká Skalice in East Bohemia does not only offer lake Rozkoš. The picturesque town near the famous water reservoir, also known as the East Bohemian Sea, is home to the headquarters of Farmet, a. s., a Czech engineering company with a tradition since 1992. The production program is divided into two divisions. The agricultural machinery division specializes in the development and production of agricultural machinery for soil processing and sowing.
The Oil&FeedTech division is a world leading manufacturer and supplier of technologies for oilseed processing, filtration and refining of vegetable oils and extrusion of feed. While the agricultural machinery operates more based on product repeatability, most of the orders in the second division are piece products. Each order is designed specifically for a given customer, for whom a tailor-made solution is created. Repeatability is not so high; instead, the entire technology and several follow-ups are specified according to the customer's requirements.
Solutions from design to implementation
Farmet, a. s., is looking for tools for its production that increase work productivity and eliminate many errors, thus giving a competitive advantage not only to itself but also to its customers. "In 2010, a department began to be built to deal with the automation of process lines. This involved the design of the electrical diagram of the switchgear. We were looking for a tool that could do more than just draw a schematic. From the selection of companies available at the time, Eplan was the winner," recalls Ing. Jiří Maslikiewicz, Head of Automation and Process Control. Specifically, Eplan Electric P8, a CAE software solution for the design, documentation and administration of electrical engineering and electrical automation projects, was chosen.
Based on a recent positive experience, Eplan Preplanning, which enables the pre-planning of technical solutions for machines and systems, was also deployed in the design phase. It supports both graphical and database-oriented working methods. In both cases, the data is seamlessly transferred to the interdisciplinary detailed design. The individual configuration of the system allows flexible adaptation to existing engineering processes. "We have been toying with the idea of drawing process PID diagrams in a different way for some time. In other systems, these are just flat images that carry no information. Eplan then presented its Eplan Preplanning software to us, and we decided to implement it almost immediately," explains Ing. Pavel Wild, Director of Customer Projects.
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Pressure to reduce design time
In the beginning, the plan was simply to simplify and shorten the process of creating schematics with a connection to electricity - by pre-creating macros. Nowadays, Eplan Preplanning is also deployed for the mechanical part of the design, and technologists now draw PID diagrams and schematics in it. Together with electrical projection, they work on the same database and exchange is much easier.
Farmet wanted to avoid errors and ensure that the documentation was up to date. "When we start designing the technology, we draw our 3D design and embed it in the different process lines of the interconnected machines. For this we use Eplan Preplanning, an advanced tool for technology diagrams," says Ing. Daniel Erhart, the responsible designer, and implementer. By having preset templates that are inserted into the projects, the company can guarantee a reduction in time and technological accuracy. After developing a schematic of a subpart and agreeing on its correctness, it can then be worked with further. This creates a database of schematics and solutions that he can reuse and still reduce design time. Eplan and the technology diagrams become the birth certificate of every project.
Collaboration that pays off
Farmet has been using the Eplan tool for electrical preparation for around ten years. However, Eplan Preplanning was a new development that made the digital world in the company even stronger.
In the beginning, Eplan proposed process changes based on its knowledge of the technology market segment with the capabilities of the Eplan Platform to create orders using Eplan Preplanning and Eplan Electric P8. This created a unified data base and eliminated all the shortcomings mentioned above. The analysis at Farmet took advantage of repetitive technology units in different variants and this repetitiveness was used to prepare configuration sets, thus optimizing the overall data flow using Eplan tools.
The key to the successful deployment and integration of Eplan Electric P8 and Preplanning was a joint system implementation project in which Eplan consultants and key Farmet users worked closely together. Consultations were carried out at the level of individual disciplines to make the most of the system's features, according to the needs of the users. At the same time, company processes (change management, documentation release, etc.) were discussed together so that they could be automated using the system, thus creating a unique "tailor-made" solution for Farmet. The resulting standard continues to be developed by key users as their needs change.
"What I particularly appreciate about working with Farmet is their awareness that optimizing processes in construction can significantly help meet more than just economic goals. They naturally turned to us on this issue, and I am incredibly pleased that the results of our optimization have brought them the expected efficiency gains," says Ing. Petr Pospíšil, Director of Eplan.
"Thanks to Eplan Preplanning, we have integrated the technological and electrical schematics into a single unit. The two have come together. Planners work in Eplan systems every day because the technology diagram is the basis for the technology we supply - from the start of planning to commissioning," concludes Ing. Pavel Wild on behalf of satisfied users of Eplan tools at Farmet, a. s.
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