Plant Layouts In ProE

[slashct]

I am looking for some help on this from people out there. Currently our plants were all laid out in an old 2d Package, they than outputed the files into a DXF and they use Autocad (and some cases the old software) to modify the layout as needed. Problem is that Autocad light is now $900 a seat, alsothey want to make sure that Autocad is just used for layouts and a few people have abused this.
One of the managers recently asked me if they can use ProE to do so, and I said yes, you can bring a DXF into drawing and make modifications but it is not as easy as Autocad, for a few lines etc, not bad but for many it can be work. He than asked what do others do, and my reply was I have seen in the past that they will create a library of machines etc, that are just the outside shape in a curve, and make an assembly, offeseting these parts, making a layout. I know that this is some work but I was wondering what others are doing out there?
TIA

 

[stefanba]

Hi slashct,


which type of plants do you want to layout? We have one customer who does layout of big steel production plants. Is this what you are looking for?View attachment 565

 

[slashct]

Right idea Stefan,and it looks good. We are a high volume, high speed production house, alot of purchased and some designed equipment. Naturally the equipment that we design is in PROENGINEER and can use in a layout, but the purcahsed items, such as conveyers, injection machines, racks, etc. Are not in ProEngineer, so they will measure the outline of them and use that in a 2d Layout, also the entire floor of the building or area would be in it as well.
Ibeen fighting with them to take it into ProEngineer, but have been losing, would love to just see the curves of the outlines, That way we wouldbe able to extrude them to a height for

 

[stefanba]

Hi slashct,


this company produces (or at least designs) most of the stuff inside the factory as their business is the plant (www.sms-demag.de) itself. So they have a lot of components already modeled in Pro/E, their main problem is how to make the structural steel of the factory building (that is what they use our software for) and how to make good simplified representations of their detailed models of the single machines (the factory sometimes is more than 100meters long and if you put in everymachinefully detailed the models will be to big). The components they buy usually are modeld very roughly by themselfs.


So seems their situation is different to your situation as most of your stuff is purchased and you do not have 3d models....


stefanba

 

[slashct]

Stefan,


Designing plants is not really our buisness but it happens as product lines change etc. On a line there will be some designed machines, but than there is quite a bit of bought items. Many of the bought items are off the shelf things, and some might be modified. Thats where I think a curve rep would be best to start with.
One guy here did model a facility in Pro, came out good and he did walk throughs, problem is it was one of the smaller ones, and there was not much equipment.


Jason

 

[goosemonster]

My company is introducing a new product range, so our plant layout is drasticaly changing.


We have a basic, raw material - fabrication - machine - weld - paint - assemble type plant. Each department (producion engineers/ manager) is responsible for fitting the new processes / machines into their own areas.


To assist with this our whole plant layout has been produced in AutoCAD LT. This is a tad basic, but it does the job (our producion engineers can just about handle AutoCAD)


A few people have suggested modeling the plant in Pro-E, just so it looks nice. But as I would be the mug given this task I have always argued against it.


A wee game I play with the layout is 'hid the bunny'. I import a jpeg of a rabbit into the layout and see if anyone notices. I make the bunny bigger and move it to a more prominent position every few days. Once its spotted I start again.

 

[boydt]

My company has a plant layout from ANVIL 5K.... It is in a .drw in Pro/E but was not to scale. I could not find a way to scale it in the .drw mode. I pulled it into a .prt and made a datum curve then scaled it.... That worked well. Then I was told they want to be able to modify it (i.e. move walls etc.). I tried to modify the curve like you would anything else in sketcher mode but it tells me that the max amount of entities was reached and is aborting.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />


I know that Pro/E is not the best tool for a 2-D plant layout but does anyone have any ideas? To summarize: I want to be able to modify the layout and be able to print drawings.


Thanks

 

[TonyJager]

WHAT WE HAVE DONE IN THE PAST WAS THE PLANT LAYOUT WAS JUST THE PART AND IT HAD THE CURVES AS THE OUTLINE OF OUR MACHINES. sO THERE WAS NO REAL 'MODELING (3D)' OF THE EQUIPMENT, JUST THE OUTLINE.


THEN YOU WOULD PUT IT ON A DRAWING WITH YOUR FORMAT.


WE HAVE DONE IT WITH AN ASSEMBLY AS WELL. THE PARTS (EQUIPMENT) WOULD BE EMPTY EXCEPT THE CURVES OF THE OUTLINE. THAT WA YOU COULD MOVE THEM AROUND A BIT WITHOUT THE RIGID CONSTRAINTS.





HOPE THIS HELPS


TONY