Siemens has announced new 3D electrical design capabilities within its industry leading Capital™ software to unify wiring design and physical harness routing in a single, model-based workflow that spans the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industry software. The new capabilities enable electrical and mechanical engineers to work concurrently in a shared 3D context, improving collaboration while reducing late-stage design changes.
As electrical systems and software content continue to increase in complexity, disconnected ECAD and MCAD workflows can lead to delays, errors and costly rework. Siemens addresses these challenges by integrating Capital within Designcenter™ software for advanced product engineering and Teamcenter® software for product lifecycle management (PLM), enabling engineers to design, validate and manage electrical systems directly within the mechanical design environment.
“For the first time, customers can pair best-in-class electrical system design, including AI-driven harness development, with 3D mechanical design in a unified, model-based workflow without compromise,” said Frances Evans, senior vice president, Lifecycle Collaboration Software, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “We are helping our customers reduce development risk while accelerating innovation with better collaboration across disciplines, earlier insight into design issues, and more confident decision making for complex electromechanical products.”
The new 3D electrical design capabilities support earlier validation of electrical systems, improve data continuity across the digital thread and reduce manual handoffs between multidisciplinary engineering teams. Engineers can visualize electrical content in 3D, identify issues sooner and work to align between design intent and physical implementation.
Key benefits include:
- Faster product development through earlier electrical system validation
- Improved ECAD‑MCAD collaboration in a shared 3D environment
- Reduced cost and risk by minimizing late design changes and rework
- Higher engineering productivity using familiar electrical and mechanical design tools, boosted with the power of AI
"Cross-disciplinary conflicts between electrical and mechanical teams are relatively inexpensive to resolve early and increasingly painful to resolve late, once adjacent subsystems have hardened around them," said Chad Jackson, CEO and chief analyst, Lifecycle Insights. "A shared 3D context, what Siemens is offering here, that connects electrical and mechanical engineers from the start of harness design is what makes early resolution operationally possible, not just an aspiration in a process diagram."
The new capabilities are being showcased for the first time this week at Siemens’ Realize LIVE Americas event and are relevant for manufacturers developing electrically complex products across multiple industries.
