ACADE performance evaluation ?

[jrl5735]

I asked this question a few years ago and haven't really followed up on it.

I work for an Electrical Utility in the States and am currently seeking information from current ACADE users regarding performace ACADE vs. vanilla ACAD. I'm looking to see what gains in design time, scheduling, data management and user growth was realized in the switch to ACADE. I hear uses say 35-50% design time improvements, hell I'd take 20% right now and present it. You know how it is though. I can say 20% all I want, but if it comes from a group who is currently using the software it looks that much more convincing.

[CAD-ICE]

Hi there,

I would say that by careful planning and coordination you can easily achieve 50-100% gains in design time compared to using traditional Autocad Vanilla.

Regards, Gary

[dougmcalexander]

Any of the intelligent electrical CAD programs will be an improvement over plain AutoCAD. I've been using various programs since 1988.  Electrical is my favorite without question.  None are perfect, but Electrical has the infrastructure for continued improvement and allows you to customize it to a great extent.  I have been using and teaching Electrical since 1997 (it was called Wiring Diagram back then).  I've traveled all over the world assisting with startup, training, and implementation of Electrical.  In my travels I have seen customers with design cycle improvements of 40% and beyond, after successfully implementing the software.  For me personally, I would say I am well beyond 50% in productivity gains, and the best part is that the drawings are better looking and more accurate.  It all depends upon how far you want to go with training. That is the key to a successful implementation of this type of software, regardless which brand you purchase.  I have customers who can accept almost twice the amount of business that they used to without adding staff.  Customer jobs which would have been turned away in the past, due to workload, can now be accepted because of the increased throughput they get from a successful implementation of AutoCAD Electrical.

[keithjk]

We easily have experienced a 40% improvement in our effiency from making the switch.  We also have done a lot of customization to it suit our needs.

[Anonymous]

There is definitely a learning curve with any intelligent CAD system.  I would recommend getting training.  You will gain more and more efficiency as time goes on.  At first, you may actually lose efficiency due to the learning curve.

[Anonymous]

To give you better evaluation on what you could expect I would like a bit information. What do you currently use ACAD for? Schematics, if so, typically how many sheets would make up a set, how many components in them, are you using standard parts, control gear breakers etc or are there many and varied custom parts? 

Are you doing panel layouts in conjunction with the schematics? Do you build what you design?

Do you build the same thing every time or are they one off projects?

How many people would you expect to be using this package and do they work together on the same project or is it one designer 1 job?

Think of buying ACADE as buying an empty shop, you have to fill it and dress it in a way that best suits your business needs. By this I mean there is alot of things that may need to be configured and ultimately tailored for your business and you may find you need to change your methods of working and procedures to get it to fit properly. It is a wolf in sheeps clothing, simple to do simple things, nice interfaces etc, but there is a beast lurking underneath! If you do take the plunge you may well need to invest in a guru for a period of time to get some the very powerful and time saving features working in a slick manner. Good excel and access skills I would also say are important certainly for the main user/administrator of the package.

I have been a user of this tool for over six years now and i'm still learning! I started a new job 4 weeks ago at a company that just use ACAD and I have come in with my ACADE license. I've spent more time on the microsoft side than the cad side of things, setting up and designing templates, adding and manipulating tables in access or creating text files in notepad. so that when I come to roll this out to the rest of the company there won't be much of a shock and they will buy into it alot more readily. Only then will serious benifits be felt and I expect them to be in the higher order of whats already been mentioned. Finally, don't be put off by what i'm saying it all depends on what do want to use ACADE for?