Cable Routing

Management
Enabling efficient design of
cable installation

An AVEVA Business Paper

www.aveva.com
Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper

Contents
Page

Introduction 3

Summary 4

The AVEVA Cable Routing and Management 5

solution

Seamless and efficient iterative workflow 5

Why do I need integrated cable routing? 7

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 Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper

Summary
Integrating Electrical & Instrumentation (E&I) system
design with 3D plant design is a complex, critical-path
project activity. Historically, the limitations of available tools
made it inefficient and error-prone, creating unnecessary
costs and delays and leading to suboptimal installations
that impair efficient asset management.

AVEVA Everything3D™ (AVEVA E3D™) now integrates

with AVEVA Electrical™ and AVEVA Instrumentation™ to
enable highly efficient design of plant cable installation.
Considerable savings of cost and time in both project
execution and asset management can be achieved with
out-of-the-box applications.

‘Integrating Electrical &

Instrumentation (E&I) system
design with 3D plant design
is a complex, critical-path
project activity. Historically, the
limitations of available tools
made it inefficient and error-
prone, creating unnecessary
costs and delays and leading
to suboptimal installations
that impair efficient asset
management...’

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 Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper
Introduction
As plant and offshore projects become ever more complex
and require ever more sophisticated E&I systems, so the
challenge of designing and installing cables increases.
The professional E&I system designer must wrestle with a
number of issues:
z the complexity of the E&I systems themselves
z the complex nature of the 3D environment in which
cables must be routed and installed; particularly
challenging in the confined space of a typical offshore
platform
z the interrelation between an electrical system’s physical
layout and its functional characteristics; for example,
cable resistance or electrical interference
z continual design changes as the overall project design
evolves from outline concept to completion
z the need to minimise usage and wastage of increasingly
costly cable materials
z the need to consider long-term maintainability.
‘Historically, the design tools used by E&I engineers did not
interoperate with those used by their 3D design colleagues...’
Historically, the design tools used by E&I engineers did not
interoperate with those used by their 3D design colleagues.
Negotiating and specifying equipment locations and
cable routings had to be – and, unfortunately, often still
is – carried out manually by means of 2D drawings and
face-to-face discussion, with the inevitable scope for costly
problems such as design errors, overfilled cable trays,
interference between power and signal cables, difficult
installation, wasted materials and even compromised
system performance or safety.
Separately, both disciplines have powerful software
tools for their own tasks. AVEVA Electrical and AVEVA
Instrumentation today provide comprehensive functions
for the efficient design of E&I systems, while AVEVA
PDMS™ has long been the tool of choice for 3D plant layout
design. With the advent of AVEVA E3D, however, 3D design
has now extended its reach to integrate with E&I design.
For the first time, these two disciplines can collaborate
seamlessly to create an optimum overall design.
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 Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper
The AVEVA Cable Routing and
Management solution
Together, AVEVA E3D, AVEVA Electrical and/or AVEVA
Instrumentation offer:
z a highly productive, intuitive to use, multi-user
environment for the design and installation of optimum
cabling layouts
z assured data consistency across 2D, 3D and reporting
deliverables
z automatic updating of deliverables as the overall project
design is developed
z Compare & Update functionality, which combines
efficient collaborative working with robust change
control.
Cable route status, length and route node information passed between AVEVA Electrical and AVEVA E3D
‘Because the electrical parts catalogue and the system data are
managed within the project’s entire dataset, the AVEVA E3D user
can see the interconnections in the 3D model view...’
Seamless and efficient iterative workflow
The process starts with the electrical system design;
the engineer creates the system using AVEVA Electrical,
specifies the interconnections between the various items
of equipment and makes provisional assignments of cable
type and size according to function and their estimated
length. Built-in calculation functions, extended by
interoperability with third-party electrical analysis solutions,
enable the provisional cable sizes to be verified.
Because the electrical parts catalogue and the system data
are managed within the project’s entire dataset, the AVEVA
E3D user can see the interconnections in the 3D model
view. Provisional cableways can be reserved, through
which intelligent cable trays are routed. The electrical
interconnections can be assigned to suitable cable trays
and routed automatically, manually or by a combination of
both methods.
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 Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper
Automatic routing applies preconfigured rules to choose
the most suitable route. It is normally used to create an
initial routing which may be adjusted and refined manually
if desired. Route Node Allocation in AVEVA E3D speeds this
process up by automatically creating bulk nodes across
a number of cableways. But even fully manual routing is
highly efficient; a user can typically route upwards of 150
cables per day.
Rules may be configured to enable optimum cable routing
and the user is alerted if a rule is broken. Interference rules
will, where possible, apply minimum separations between,
say, noisy high-current supply cables and signal cables.
Tray-fill rules route cables so that cable trays are only
partially populated during construction, leaving capacity for
subsequent in-service modification work.
In any task initial designs are, inevitably, approximate or
incomplete. Typically, an exact 3D routing will change the
lengths of cables. AVEVA E3D automatically flags a cable
for resizing where this has happened. Data integration
enables the actual installed lengths to be returned to
AVEVA Electrical to update the system specification.
Occasionally, this update may be sufficient to require
re-analysis of the cable’s voltage drop, which may either
require a thicker cable or show that a thinner cable can be
used, saving cost and cable tray capacity. The collaborative
use of a common dataset enables such two-way design
refinements to be carried out quickly and efficiently.
Throughout this design evolution, change management
ensures that each discipline works with information of
known maturity status. Eventually, a point is reached
at which elements of the design can be released for
production. Cables that have reached this status can be
locked, a change that normally also involves the cables
being drummed. Further changes to their lengths are then
inhibited.
AVEVA Instrumentation eliminates error sources in change
management. Because its functional modules share a
common database, each information item is controlled
in a single location. Robust change control processes
can be applied at source and all referencing applications,
documents and deliverables update automatically once a
change is approved.
Changes often arise out of a new, out-of-scope
requirement from the client. Here, it is important to be
able to quickly and accurately assess the impact of the
change in order to agree any necessary price or delivery
adjustments. As delivery dates invariably seem to remain
fixed even in the face of specification creep, the ability to
minimise programme impact through efficient change
implementation is a valuable business benefit.
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 Cable Routing Management - An AVEVA Business Paper

Why do I need integrated cable routing?

During project development, all engineering and design
activities are interdependent; make a change in one area and
its effects ripple outwards across almost every other. This is
particularly true when developing the E&I system because it
is the ‘nervous system’ that controls and monitors the entire
plant. Moving an item of equipment to make room for another
may be relatively straightforward in the 3D layout, but could
require major redesign of the electrical and instrumentation
installation to ensure that the correct power supplies are
re-specified and re-routed, that signal cables are moved to
different cable trays, and so on.

Integrated cable routing makes the E&I installation as

intelligent as the piping layout, so that cable lengths
automatically update, rules continue to be obeyed, alerts
are generated if equipment or cable trays are moved, and
both production deliverables and Materials Take-Off remain
consistent with the revised design.

The benefits are considerable. During project execution, E&I

is invariably on the critical path, so anything which improves
efficiency here has a direct effect on the overall programme.
Integrated cable routing extensively eliminates opportunities
for errors which would otherwise absorb skilled effort in
checking and correcting, increase cost, waste materials and
create delays. Once in service, poor installation design can
hamper efficient maintenance and modification, and may
even harbour hidden safety hazards.

Integrated cable routing, in contrast, promotes high-quality,

standards-compliant electrical installation that is inherently
more reliable, easier to work with during routine maintenance,
and more easily modified for in-plant engineering projects.

These benefits are achievable now, with proven, out-of-the-

box technology not available from any other vendor.

‘Integrated cable routing

extensively eliminates
opportunities for errors which
would otherwise absorb skilled
effort in checking and correcting,
increase cost, waste materials
and create delays...’

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