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Functional, modular design of automation systems with Automation Designer

By Maximilian Wollnik

Many customers who work with repetitive design components and modular systems find themselves repeating the same design steps from one machine to another, or one line to another.  What if there were a way to complete configure-to-order and engineer-to-order workflows for automation systems faster than ever before with higher quality?

NX Automation Designer makes this possible by improving modularization and standardization of automation equipment.  It provides functional modelling of automation equipment that enables the user to create more holistic libraries of their equipment, enabling their quick reuse to speed up the design process, working in bulk and not singular software blocks, UDTs or tags.  This allows for powerful, bulk changes of software code as well as hardware.

Rule-based software creation enables users to implement their coding standards from the beginning ensuring that each machine follows those standards, by eliminating the human component from the repetitive design process.   It also eliminates the largest source of error in repetitive design processes, human error in copy-paste-and-change workflows.   In addition, bulk-workflows enable project specific changes to designs (ie. Subnet or IO Wiring) to be quickly modified for engineer-to-order processes. 

All of this work can then be sent to TIA Portal, without any programming, where the code can be compiled and downloaded into the PLC, all in record time. 

Whether you are a machine builder, working with different configurations of your machines, or a line builder working with standard components in the lines you build, these tools can help you reduce engineering time up to 50%. 

Watch the video and see the functionalities for yourself!

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/nx-industrial-electrical-design/2021/05/06/functional-modular-design-of-automation-systems-with-automation-designer/