CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
1 February 2011
Implementation Investments
Autodesk Powers Better Design at Southern California Edison
Autodesk, Inc. announced that Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the nation’s largest electric utility companies, has implemented and deployed Autodesk utility solutions to its Transmission and Distribution Business Unit (TDBU). The solution--which includes Autodesk Utility Design software, Autodesk Subscription and professional services—is helping SCE to streamline workflows where engineering and construction standards are linked to the design process.
In November 2007, SCE selected Autodesk to provide the utility with a common set of graphical design applications for designers, engineers and planners who oversee the utility's distribution and transmission assets. Since then, Autodesk Utility Design software has been deployed to over 600 users at SCE to help expand and strengthen their electric system design and processes. The solution has also been deployed to external contractors in order to support design consistency.
Some of the benefits SCE expects using Autodesk Utility Design include:
- Ease of use for new and experienced planners, designers, and supervisors. Since the system is AutoCAD-based, SCE can leverage the expertise of AutoCAD-trained designers in the utilities field, helping to reduce the learning curve for new employees and mitigate the impact of experienced worker retirements.
- More streamlined workflows where engineering and construction standards are linked to the design process. With Autodesk Utility Design, SCE planners can exchange data with other corporate systems, including SAP, in order to generate construction work orders that include layouts, engineering data, bills of material, design scenarios and estimated costs.
- More standardized design output across SCE service territory. The inclusion of material ordering within Autodesk Utility Design will help provide more consistent design output.
“Autodesk’s approach is to provide our utility customers with an open, standards-based solution so they can more easily and accurately create a complete model of their network,” said Paul McRoberts, senior director, Infrastructure Modeling Product Line Group, AEC solutions division for Autodesk. “Autodesk believes that maintaining the accuracy and completeness of the asset data initially established in the design process throughout the asset life cycle is critically important to the success of utilities like Southern California Edison, especially as they roll out their new Wires Investment Strategy (WIS).”
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