The Hosokawa Alpine Case Study
The Problem:
Hosokawa Alpine tailors every machine to individual customer needs, so each project required custom electrical documentation — slow, inconsistent and labour-intensive. The company needed uniform standards and automated document creation across all departments.
The WSCAD Solution:
With WSCAD SUITE and the Project Wizard, Hosokawa standardised its electrical design using enterprise-wide macro libraries and predefined sets. Complete schematics are generated at the touch of a button, delivering identically structured documentation 20–30% faster.
Hosokawa Alpine, the Augsburg-based plant designer for powder and bulk materials processing, has standardised its electrical design with WSCAD SUITE. Using enterprise-wide macro libraries and the Project Wizard add-on, its engineers generate complete, identically structured schematics at the touch of a button, from motor controls to entire drive trains. Parts data comes from wscaduniverse.com and flows directly into ERP via the PLM/ERPsync interface, eliminating manual rework. The result is electrical documentation created 20-30% faster, uniform company-wide standards that simplify purchasing, commissioning and service, and valuable time freed up for the individual design of each machine.
At a Glance
Customer
- Hosokawa Alpine AG, Augsburg
- Plant designer for the processing of powders, granulates and bulk materials
- 700 employees
- www.hosokawa-alpine.com
Challenge
- Individually tailored machines to the needs of global customers
- Uniform standards for development and commissioning are required
- Electrical documents should be created automatically as far as possible
Solution
- Standardised electrical engineering workflows
- Automated schematic creation using the WSCAD Project Wizard
- Centralised engineering data and system integration
Benefits
- Standardisation of electrical design for special machine construction
- 20 to 30 per cent faster when creating electrical documents
- Uniform company-wide standards simplify purchasing and
service
WSCAD disciplines and add-ons used:
Hosokawa Alpine AG from Augsburg is consistently pushing ahead with standardisation in its electrical design. This saves a lot of time, increases the efficiency of processes and increases the quality of products. The two prerequisites for standardisation are a modular, well-structured product portfolio and appropriate electrical CAD software.
Powders, granules or bulk solids – we encounter them every day in all walks of life. From soya to barley, tablets or coatings for the automotive industry – the precursors for such products are often crushed by plants that come from Augsburg. For more than 110 years, Hosokawa Alpine, which is based in Augsburg, has been supplying high-quality machines and systems for a variety of in-house recycling tasks and the processing of powders, granules and bulk solids. 700 employees develop and manufacture with great expertise.
Their worldwide customers, with different requirements from all branches of the process industry, demand a lot from the engineering teams at Hosokawa Alpine. Depending on the consistency, intended use or manufacturing process of the various end products, they have to tailor the machines exactly to the needs of the customer. All components of the modern mills and classifiers have to work seamlessly together, from engineering down to manufacturing. State-of-theart automation and visualisation guarantee high process stability and easy operation. The electrical engineers at Hosokawa Alpine use the electrical CAD solution from WSCAD to design the required documentation and the design of the control cabinets.
Powders, granules or bulk solids – many of the starting materials for day-to-day life products are crushed by high-quality machines coming from Hosokawa Alpine based in Augsburg. For example, jet milling through interparticle collisions within the gas jets with the Fluidised Bed Opposed Jet Mill AFG.
Company-wide standards lead to high efficiency
The electrical engineer Christian Ziegler and his colleagues design the required electrical standards in order to be able to develop consistently throughout the company at high quality. This includes basic work for the PLC controls as well as the design of schematics: defining parts, drawing symbols, creating macros and variants and making them available in libraries.
“This way our schematics are structured identically across all engineering disciplines and all departments. And our employees work more efficiently”, says Christian Ziegler, while underlining the advantages of companywide standards. “The same applies to the final commissioning at the customer: the software and control cabinets of the different machines are built according to the same concept and are easy to understand.” The current symbols and parts data for the company’s own database are downloaded from wscaduniverse.com, the world’s largest electrical CAD library.
It has parts and symbols in WSCAD and EDZ* format. The portal currently has 1.4 million parts from 380 manufacturers. The standardised use of materials leads to larger quantities and this enables purchasing to negotiate better terms and conditions. The link between WSCAD and ERP systems is provided via the PLM/ERPsync interface. The bill of material generated in WSCAD contains all relevant information. This removes manual work (copying and pasting) or searching for order numbers, etc. No manual transmissions, no search for order numbers, and rarely any questions for the engineers. The standardisation team at Hosokawa provides a WSCAD design kit to their engineering colleagues. The kit has been continually enhanced.
Engineers don’t have to design symbols, macros and their variants. They just have to pick them from the online database. New additions include the so-called sets, with the help of which schematics can now be generated for the most part at the touch of a button.
Hosokawa automatically generates electrical documentation using the Electrical Engineering module of the WSCAD software in conjunction with the Project Wizard.
With WSCAD we have a very good partner in terms of uploading the article data on wscaduniverse.com as well as working together on the development, implementation and integration of WAGO Smart Designer into the WSCAD software.
Faster with the Project Wizard
In order to efficiently use the standardised library, engineers are working with WSCAD Project Wizard. With this small Add-On to the WSCAD software, a complete motor control system, for example, including frequency converters, cables and fuse protection can be easily integrated into the schematics. It only takes a few clicks. For this purpose predefined sets are integrated into the Project Wizard. A set consists of several macros, which in turn, are composed of different symbols and variants. Depending on the design – for example, the power rating of the drive – all the required electrical components with the appropriate parts are now stored in the variants.
By combining multiple sets, the entire schematic is created at the touch of a button. This is fast and ensures that all schematics are consistently structured and standardised. Only little or no rework is required. The change of sets can occur from a central location, and is updated immediately for all engineers. “This way, we can further increase our standards and degree of automation. Our engineers can design schematics faster and in better quality”, says Christian Ziegler, while appreciating the new possibilities with the Project Wizard. “The slightly higher overhead initially is well worth the effort. After just a few months we are already working about 20 per cent faster than before. And we have just begun.”
The electrical plan for this control cabinet was created by drag-and-drop in the WSCAD Project Wizard.
By creating enterprise-wide macro libraries we make sure that our schematics are structured identically in all departments. This way our employees work more efficiently.
To ensure that all colleagues know which sets are available, there are clearly described libraries, which also contain the structure of a schematic. The suitable sets and macros can be conveniently dragged from the central library and dropped into a project table. For example, a complete drive train can be designed and documented in a single step. Christian Ziegler adds: “This is valuable time that we can now invest in the individual design of each machine and in new projects.” Hosokawa Alpine is thus successfully supplying special machines of consistently high quality, which result from an extraordinarily efficient product development process. To ensure that all colleagues know which sets are available, there are clearly described libraries, which also contain the structure of a schematic. The suitable sets and macros can be conveniently dragged from the central library and dropped into a project table. For example, a complete drive train can be designed and documented in a single step. Christian Ziegler adds: “This is valuable time that we can now invest in the individual design of each machine and in new projects.” Hosokawa Alpine is thus successfully supplying special machines of consistently high quality, which result from an extraordinarily efficient product development process.
The developers and designers at Hosokawa Alpine quickly generate the majority of their circuit diagrams via a table in the Add-On Project Wizard of electrical CAD software WSCAD.
The slightly higher overhead initially is well worth the effort. After just a few months we are now already working about 20 per cent faster than before. And we are only at the beginning. This is valuable time that we can now invest in the individual design of each machine and in new projects.
An electrical CAD platform for all non-mechanical engineering tasks
With the electrical engineering solution from WSCAD, engineers and designers can efficiently complete all their “non-mechanical” design tasks with just one software product and on a single platform. From electrical engineering and cabinet engineering, through process and fluid technology, all the way down to building automation and electrical installation. The replacement of a valve in the fluid plan, for example, is immediately visible in all schematics of the other engineering disciplines. This saves time and improves the quality of the results. All symbols and parts data are located in a central database which, in turn, enables cross-disciplinary work without data breaches, misunderstandings and inconveniences. It works in small or large projects, with multilingual capabilities and sophisticated user rights or even in teams with international projects. Working with parent structure identifiers, importing data from other electrical CAD systems, reliable PLM/ERP integration and proven methods to automate engineering tasks are likewise part of the WSCAD solution. It comes with various options for the maintenance contract and excellent support.
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