Love the Mild Winter!

February 2nd, 2012

Have you been looking into DraftLogic Electrical or another solution to your electrical design productivity problems? Need to do twice as much work with your current staff level? Has the only thing holding you back been the reluctance to commit to outright purchasing of a license? Read on, we are about to make your day…but first some talk about the weather.

How is Winter Treating You?

OK, we don’t know how winter is going in YOUR area, but it is certainly mild in our area. Last year by this time it was a struggle to lift the snow high enough to get it on the snowbank when shovelling the driveway. This year it has been hard to get enough snow in a pile so my son can dig tunnels (properly engineered safe tunnels, of course, for any moms reading this).

Love the Mild Winter Promotion

The unseasonably mild weather has my partner Gerry and I in a festive mood. We’d like to share that with you by giving you a reduced price on the opportunity to double your electrical design production.

For the month of February 2012, we are thus offering DraftLogic Electrical ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ licenses for only $395 a month! That’s $80 a month off the regular price of $475.

And because we have only gone below -30 Celcius for a few days, unlike the usual weeks, we are also going to give you the 12th month of pay-as-you-go free.

 

Go to our Pricing web page for more information about the ‘Pay As You Go’ licenses.

Go to our Love the Mild Winter promotion web page for more information about this promotion.

 

Regards,
Dean Whitford, CEO
DraftLogic Inc.

www.draftlogic.com

 

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DraftLogic Christmas Availability

December 22nd, 2011

Hi everyone,

Most important of all, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Now back to business…DraftLogic will be available for support throughout the Christmas season, with only sporadic absences of a few hours.

So please call/email/chat as you need for assistance & we will either be immediately available as per usual or be getting back to you within a 1/2 day.

Note the holiday season may be a opportune time to upgrade your site to DraftLogic Electrical V3.0 if you have not already done so!

Kindest regards to you and your family this holiday season,
Gerry Stebnicki, President & Dean Whitford, CEO
DraftLogic

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New Feature Provides More Options on Floor Plans Appearance

December 19th, 2011

The circuit numbers, switch IDs, luminaire tag numbers, and other text you see on a DraftLogic Electrical floorplan are all visible attributes of the symbols (aka blocks) that they are associated to. Being basically a part of those symbols is great since it allows DraftLogic to do so much for you, like assigning those circuit numbers during Automated Circuiting and nicely arranging all the visible attributes with the Annotation Organizer.

New Feature to Control Annotation

Today we are pleased to announce that DraftLogic Electrical now includes a function to move all that visible annotation to separate layers from the parent symbols so that you can control the color of the annotation separately from the color of the parent symbol. By having the annotation a different color, your plotting can utilize a different lineweight for the visible annotation versus the symbol’s geometry.

Speed is Not an Issue

The layer change for the annotation takes less than a couple of seconds even on a project with thousands of devices in it. Annotation is pushed to separate annotation layers for each system, thus maintaining your ability to isolate by system in model space and for viewports.

Completely Reversable

If you need the annotation returned to the same layer as the parent symbol, another quick function completes the round trip for you.

For detail on how to use the new functions, see this forums entry.

Thanks again to Daniel for this feature request!

Best of the Christmas season to all,
Dean Whitford & Gerry Stebnicki
DraftLogic Inc.

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ConEst IntelliBid V7 Released–DraftLogic Electrical Design Automatically Transferred

December 8th, 2011

Hey folks,

In case you missed the ConEst and DraftLogic press releases over the past few months, ConEst released their IntelliBid version 7. In addition to numerous goodies in the estimating environment improved upon over prior versions of IntelliBid, DraftLogic Electrical can transfer every element of your completed design into the IntelliBid V7 count sheets. This saves you innumerable mouse clicks and keystrokes! Now instead of the drudge-work of counting, clicking, measuring, and typing to get the detail from the design into the estimating software, electrical estimators can now focus on applying their estimating discretion to complete an estimate.

See our news page for more information, or the Electrical Contractor website coverage of the same. We also have detail about the IntelliBid integration on the DraftLogic website.

Regards,
Dean Whitford, CEO
DraftLogic Inc.
780-906-2888
dwhitford@draftlogic.com

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Your Choice of Service Description for Named Devices on Panel Schedules

November 24th, 2011

We are pleased to announce that we have put you, our user, in the driver’s seat for what shows up in the panel schedule’s service description column.

This is yet another way that we leave the control of what happens in DraftLogic Electrical up to you! Due to so many questions about user control from prospective buyers after they see our eye-popping electrical design automation, we’ll soon be posting a web page to let everyone know that the user remains in full control of the results & specifically how we enable that.

Back to the new feature announcement…after we thank Daniel L for bringing this feature request to our attention. Thanks, Daniel!

When you generate panel schedules, you can now have the ‘service description’ column filled in three different ways for single-device circuits where the device has a unique name, equipment tag, or description assigned:

1. Report the equipment tag (aka description) only, falling back to the unique name if there is no equipment tag on the device.

2. Report the device location only

3. Report a combination of 1&2.

This is all in effect as of build 3.0.0.361, which can be updated with a single file overwrite from build 3.0.0.350. If you have not yet updated to V3, we will be replacing the 3.0.0.350 installers with 3.0.0.361 ones this weekend.

In the past, panels and motors were reporting their unique name and all other circuits were reporting their location. With this change, all single-device circuits where the device has a unique name, equipment tag, or description assigned will act in accordance with your choice of one of the three above options at a new project parameter created for this purpose. Note that all circuits still get a single letter prefix to let you know if the circuit is for a child panel, child transformer, receptacles, motors, lights, or mixed.

See more information about this new feature in the DraftLogic Electrical forums.

Let me know if you have any questions or desire to get this free upgrade for all users,
Dean Whitford
CEO
DraftLogic Inc.
780-906-2888
dwhitford@draftlogic.com

Click here to return to the Draftlogic website.

PS: Daniel, we are now working on your request to be able to separate visible attributes onto separate layers with the ability to differ in color from their parent block. ETA for release of the new function is a couple weeks.

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Productivity Shoot-Out: DraftLogic Electrical vs. AutoCAD vs. Revit MEP

November 14th, 2011

In speaking with electrical engineering companies and design build companies about DraftLogic Electrical, we are asked time and time again about whether there is a version of DraftLogic Electrical that runs within Revit.

 

Just Like Your Dentist: You Have to Go There From Time to Time but it Always Hurts

The vast majority of those who are asking are not doing so because they like designing in Revit, they are asking because they are forced to work in Revit on certain projects. Without fail, those same folks tell us that working in Revit is costing them design productivity…and not just a little bit! Their estimate of the electrical design productivity drop is 30-40%, no small thing in a world where we need to become more productive rather than less.

All of the electrical design firms we have spoken with about Revit have experienced the same thing. The industry is forcing us all in that direction and we are developing strategies to help us still be productive, profitable and at the same time give the clients the deliverables they are requesting.

 

Productivity Shoot-Out to See What the Affect Is

Since we were curious about exactly how much productivity was being lost, we decided to run a productivity shoot-out. The same project would be designed in AutoCAD with the typical ‘corporate tools’ to help out, Revit MEP, and DraftLogic Electrical (which runs on top of AutoCAD).

We had some interesting results.

Here is the summary of the “production hours for the design and drawings” on this example of a multi-use 26,000 sq. ft. two story building. Production times were from experienced software users in all three production time records. The results will vary from project to project depending on size and complexity, this is just one typical example, but reflects what we are hearing from clients across North America on productivity. Producing design and drawings in 3D takes longer, always.

 

Design Time Required to Complete the Project

Standard ACAD = 130 hours

Revit MEP= 177 hours (a 36% increase in production cost!)

DraftLogic Electrical = 21 hours ( an 84% increase in productivity over ACAD and 88% increase over Revit)

DraftLogic Electrical with Revit output of devices only (estimated) = 37hours (net 79% increase in productivity for 2D, 3D combined output over full 3D)

This clearly outlines the potential gains by keeping the 2D elements in the 2D environment from a production standpoint. Even when doing the design in DraftLogic Electrical and then going into Revit to place the devices therein to meet the project’s Revit deliverable requirement, DraftLogic Electrical is still almost five times faster than doing everything just in Revit!


Conclusion

Is your goal to slavishly work in a single platform that you would not work in if you had the choice?  We don’t think so!

As designers, the goal is to get the job done with the utmost of professionalism and in reasonable time–you want a good design on a timely basis, the software you use is just a tool to get you to a completed design.

As electrical engineering firm & design build firm executives & owners, you want the work done accurately, error free, to meet client requirements, and at lowest reasonable cost to your company.  If this means that there is some deliverable in some format (a Revit model, for example), well that is just part of the job and doesn’t necessarily mean that you want or need to do the job completely in that format.

This productivity shoot-out has clearly demonstrated, as have all our benchmark tests, that DraftLogic Electrical drastically increases design productivity.  In this case, DraftLogic Electrical still vastly accelerates productivity even when one of the project deliverables involves looking at the completed DraftLogic Electrical design in order to place required devices into a Revit building model as one of the electrical design deliverables.

Prudent and intelligent use of tools available can make a huge difference to your bottom line, call or email us to discuss your situation and we’ll discuss how DraftLogic Electrical can benefit you.

Regards,
Gerry Stebnicki & Dean Whitford
DraftLogic Inc.
gstebnicki@draftlogic.com / dwhitford@draftlogic.com
780-906-2888

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What have we done for you lately? DraftLogic V3.0 Quick Update!

October 17th, 2011

Hey folks,

We’ve been so busy with our DraftLogic Electrical V3.0 update that we have not been very good at communicating with you about what’s happening…sorry!

Regardless, DraftLogic Electrical V3.0 is now shipping.  The biggest improvement is complete native support to run on all 64bit AutoCADs 2010 thru to 2012 inclusive in addition to what we supported in V2.0, which was all 32bit AutoCADs 2006 thru to 2012 inclusive.

Here’s a quick list of some of the highlights of our work the past 12 months:

  • Many cycles of improvement in Annotation Organizer (the Annotation Organizer automatically arranges visible annotation in the floor plan plots for best readability, saving you an immense number of hours of clicking and dragging annotation around)
  • Very soon to be released completely reworked Automated Luminaire Tag Placement
  • New ‘Export to IntelliBid’ function/report for direct transfer of detailed materials requirements to estimating software
  • Even more accurate distances for Bill of Materials, including a number of user modifiers
  • User overrides for distance to parent for all power tree devices, large motors, and all homeruns
  • Motor controls reported on Motor Schedule
  • Now compatible with all 32bit AutoCADs 2006 thru to 2012 inclusive
  • Now compatible with all 64bit AutoCADs 2010 thru to 2012 inclusive
  • Libraries have many more functions added
  • Approximately 30% more ‘out-of-the-box’ template entries in libraries

We’re in the process of contacting all our users to arrange the updating of their site to the new version, call or email us at your convenience if you haven’t heard from us yet and want to move ahead ASAP.

Regards,

Dean Whitford
CEO
DraftLogic Inc.
780-906-2888

 

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SIZE MEANS EVERYTHING

July 13th, 2011

Okay, now that we have your attention read on to find out why.

DESIGN SOFTWARE SELECTION

When choosing the right electrical design software to use for your project the right choice can yield enormous benefits in efficiency, such benefits multiplying the larger the building.  Here is an example where the power of automation in design can be leveraged to create significant productivity gains.  Time spent is not necessarily directly proportional to the project size.  This can be argued with any software application but some will produce far better results than others.  Those that offer only enhancements to what amounts to still completely manual design will limit production to human speed and the time for the job, meaning time for a larger job varies basically proportional to the size of the job.  On the other hand, software that offers automation can multiply the productivity results many fold and reap huge rewards for the designer and contractors.

AUTOMATION VASTLY MULTIPLIES DESIGN PRODUCTIVITY

As an example we recently tested the capability of our software on a 725,000 sq. ft. plant building.   In that job, we placed approximately 7,000 light fixtures including zonal cavity lighting calculations for over 450 rooms and placed receptacles in all rooms.  We completely circuited the project, populated 195 electrical panels and created a single line & panel schedules completely automatically with all load calculations done including selection of feeders, selection of protection, calculation of fault levels for each panel, indication of minimum IC handling for all protection, and accommodation throughout for voltage drop.  This entire process once the drawings were set up took only hours.  Estimating that there were approximately 4000 circuits to connect doing this manually would have taken around 200 hours ( a conservative estimate) just for the circuiting let alone filling in schedules, creating single line diagrams and doing load and fault level calculations.  Taking these tasks into account would likely would have doubled that time for the manual circuiting and single line process.

Looking at the project as a whole, thus including device placement, circuiting, and generation of all schedules and floor plans, using normal ACAD tools this would have easily taken over 40 to 50 man weeks.  We achieved this result in less than two man weeks including all drawing set up, layouts and calculations & creation of all client deliverables.  An astounding accomplishment when one considers what was done in this compressed time frame.  The work completed in the aforementioned time included everything already mentioned plus the drawing of multi-circuit home runs and device to device interconnections for branch circuit wiring & creation of a complete bill of materials that included branch circuit wiring, feeders, all devices, and panel+protection summaries with required IC levels noted.

BE A LEADER NOT A FOLLOWER

Seek out and find the right tools for the job, do your research and use your time effectively because your competitors are doing the same thing.

This strategy can get your foot in the door with new clients when they understand what you can do for them, and it will make your life easier with contractors by reducing the number of design errors on your project regardless of size.  Automation effectively applied can change your life, release a great deal of repetitive drudgery and at the same time improve quality.

DraftLogic Electrical offers patented automation tools that are not offered anywhere else.  Possible productivity gains are astounding and have been proven, time and time again and we have carefully measured and documented the results in a white paper available on our website at www.draftlogic.com.

Check it out and change the way you do things.

Gerry Stebnicki, P. Eng, Bsc. Electrical
President
DraftLogic

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DraftLogic Electrical January 2011 Release Notes

January 11th, 2011

The Only Completely Automated Noncoincident Loads Handling

We are proud to announce that DraftLogic Electrical now includes the only completely automated noncoincident loads handling we are aware of for building electrical design software in the free world…and the not-so-free world for that matter!  There are also some other enhancements and bug fixes.

Here is a list of the more important changes in this release versus our last major release in October 2010.  Please call (Dean @ 780-906-2888) or email (dwhitford@draftlogic.com) if you have any questions or would like to get a quick WebEx walk-through of the new features.  We can schedule a session to occur at your convenience; I expect we’ll cover everything new in 20-30 minutes. 

1. You can now have an unlimited number of groups and subgroups of noncoincident loads in your project.  At any point in the single line (aka power tree / electrical distribution system) where noncoincident loads from a group meet, only the largest load subgroup is included in the load calculations.  To make this happen, all you have to do is put your choice of identifying phrases or numbers in the noncoincident groups ID and subgroup ID attributes that have been at the end of the attribute list on receptacle, wattage bearing junction boxes, and motors for some time.  

Were you wondering what those attributes were for?  Now you know!  This completely automated decision and calculation enhancement will enable you to design to maximum efficiency without having to spend hours calculating different loads in and out at various points of your project’s electrical distribution.  I have prepared a drawing with some uses of noncoincident loads if you want to see how the noncoincident loads functionality works in a completed project—let me know if you would like to receive the drawing.

2. The wattage limit has been increased to seven digits for branch circuits.  So motors of up to 9,999,999 watts can now be supported…although you may have trouble with the protection and conductor sizing for such a beast

3. Automated support for CEC 14-606 effects on transformer secondary child bus sizing have been completed.  The bus of the transformer’s secondary side child panel will be upsized automatically as required by this rule & the user notified of the change with a notification arrow.  Thanks for the help on this one, John K!

4. Numerous little gremlins, trolls, goblins and various other evil creatures (aka bugs) living in the source code have been ferreted out and sent back to the magical lands where they are supposed to live.

There are some great things coming soon, like 64 bit operating system support and major improvements to the Annotation Organizer (20% speed increase, improved xref collision avoidance, and completion of support for situations like end-to-end rows of luminaires).  The new Annotation Organizer is actually ready for beta use, so if you have a project that you are finishing up and you desire to clean the annotation up, let me know and we’ll set you up to try the new Annotation Organizer.

[2011/11/11 Update: both the 64bit migration and the Annotation Organizer optimizations mentioned above are now complete and shipping!]

About DraftLogic
DraftLogic will empower your firm to finish projects faster and more accurately at the same time as providing more value to your clients.  We do this by building expert systems CAD software to relieve you of repetitive engineering tasks and give you more time to concentrate on high value-add work.
For information, please visit our web site at http://www.draftlogic.com ,email dwhitford@draftlogic.com, or call Dean Whitford at 780.906.2888.
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National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) Show Boston 2010

December 17th, 2010

DraftLogic had a booth at the recent NECA show in Boston.  It was our first public event as a company and the public unveiling of DraftLogic Electrical’s production release.  We have had users for years prior, but they were all beta sites helping us with development.  Gerry and I manned the booth & Ivy was our support crew.

The new convention center in Boston is cavernous, to say the least.  When we dropped by the day before show opening to get set up, we got a golf cart ride from the entrance to the NECA show hall which was at the other end of the convention center.  The ride took some time even though the golf cart was moving along at a good pace!  I think an aircraft carrier would comfortably fit in the convention halls…

Since it was a show for electrical contractors, the products and services being exhibited were diverse.  There were a number of estimating software companies, many tool vendors, surge suppression manufacturers, lighting companies, vehicles, and more.  DraftLogic was the only electrical design software being exhibited at the show.

Attendance was not dismal, nor was it what I would call busy.  In the prior trade shows I have attended as an exhibitor, there was always someone wanting to learn about your offerings.  When you are that busy, the day goes fast and you wish you had more time available to talk to folks.  NECA 2010 had a few busy times, but the sum total over three days was a few hours of ‘busy’.  The rest of the time we had to resort to mugging, which is what I call it when you have to approach walkers-by to let them know what you do and ask them if they want to know more.   Regardless of the method of introduction, we did meet some great folks & many of them would benefit greatly from using DraftLogic Electrical.

For all you software entrepreneurs out there, my recommendation on exhibiting at trade shows is to do so…but with extreme caution about which shows you go to.  An excellent show can make your year.  To qualify as thus, the show has to bring large numbers of folks that fit your target market to the show and structure the trade show and other functions such that folks have time to and desire to walk the show floor and see your offering.  The worst of the shows will do nothing but vacuum money out of your pocket and waste your time.  You will go in ready for lots of great conversations and you will come out feeling dejected and ripped off!  So carefully qualify shows by looking at costs and time versus who is going to be coming to the show, the quantity of prospects you think will fit your offering, and whether the show organizer is doing all they can to get traffic past your booth.

Lastly, do not be afraid to greet walkers-by with a two second catch phrase and question.  It is costing you a lot to be at the show, you need to make the best of it.  Make sure your question cannot be answered with a ‘no’ and that it qualifies the prospect as possibly a fit for your product or not.   Something like ‘How many design-build projects did your company complete in the last 12 months?’  This gave Gerry and I all the information we needed to know if DraftLogic Electrical was going to be good for the prospect or not & also raised the interest of those that were doing design-build work.

Will we attend NECA 2011?  Hard to say, which tells you that it was not anywhere near as good a show as we hoped for us!

Merry Christmas to all!

Dean Whitford

DraftLogic

PS for Technorati:  BD6F246X82GH

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