EPLAN drawings versus a project record system: what each should hold

Your electrical CAD tool is built to draw. It knows the terminal strips, the cable schedule, the I/O list and the mounting plate layout. It checks that a device tag appears once and that a wire has two ends.

Do not copy that content into another system by hand. Two copies drift apart within weeks. The design file is the master, and everything else points to it.

A design engineer should still be able to say which sheet changed and why; that is a job for revision notes inside the drawing set. The tool does that work well, and it should stay that way.

A panel job has a life outside the drawing. A quote is accepted, a customer purchase order arrives, parts are ordered, a contactor is delayed, a wireman starts on Monday and a tester signs on Friday. None of this belongs in a drawing tool. Keep the record light but never vague. A planner should open one screen and know which panels are blocked on parts.

Project software holds that timeline. It should know the job number, the customer, the promised ship date and who is on the panel today.

Short rule. If it changes with the calendar, it lives in the project record; if it changes with the design, it lives in the CAD file.

Revision control is where panel builders get hurt. The shop floor builds from a print, and the print was issued last Tuesday. Meanwhile the designer has made two edits. Someone must say which revision is released, and the project record is the place for that statement.

The release should carry the revision letter, the date, the approver and the reason. The drawing set stays in EPLAN, but the released PDF is attached to the job so the wireman opens the right one. Everyone then argues about the paperwork, not the panel.

When the design changes after release, the project record should list which purchased parts and which wired sections the change touches.

EPLAN produces the part list. It does not know that the breaker is on backorder or that the enclosure arrived scratched. Export the list as a spreadsheet or XML file and load it into the project record, line by line.

Each line then gains fields the drawing never had: supplier, order number, promised date, received quantity, bin location and substitution. A buyer sees what is late. A planner sees whether the panel can start.

Import is only half the job. When a revision adds three relays, the system should show which lines are new, so purchasing orders only the difference. A buyer who sees only the difference makes fewer mistakes and sends fewer rush orders to the distributor.

Test records belong with the job. Insulation checks, continuity tests, earth bonding, functional runs and the tester’s name are all events in the build. Store them against the panel serial number so a customer query can be answered from one screen.

Agree on one owner for each field. Design owns tags and part numbers. Purchasing owns order status. Production owns wiring progress. Quality owns test results.

Then write that list down and pin it near the design desk. A simple field ownership table ends most arguments before they begin; review it once a quarter with design, purchasing and the workshop in the same room.