Insta utilizes CADMATIC Electrical to streamline their design processes

Today, Insta has close to forty CADMATIC Electrical licenses in use, utilized by up to a hundred designers. With network licenses, Insta has gained flexibility and cost-efficiency. As their designers don’t work full-time with design software, they have decided to have a pool of network licenses that are shared among the users.

Insta empowers a secure and sustainable future. This family-owned, diversified technology company serves as a reliable partner to its customers in industry, defense, software consulting, and cybersecurity.

As a pioneer in industrial automation, electrification, and digitalization, Insta helps its customers enhance and improve their business competitiveness, productivity, and operational reliability. With over 60 years of experience, Insta excels in understanding their customers’ needs, allowing them to offer innovative solutions even for challenging projects.

CADMATIC Electrical in versatile use

Insta comprehensively offers various services to its customers, including electrification, instrumentation, and automation engineering services across different industries, their turn-key deliveries, and lifecycle services. With customers spanning multiple industries and projects focusing on different areas, the software needs to be adaptable to many situations. Utilizing CADMATIC Electrical Insta designs, among other things, electrifications for process industries, circuit diagrams, panel layouts, and conducts instrumentation design.

According to Jarkko Järvilehto, Vice President, Industry Engineering at Insta, the extensiveness of CADMATIC Electrical is one of the most important benefits Insta sees in the software.

”The breadth of its capabilities is perhaps the most important factor in why CADMATIC Electrical was chosen for us. It allows us practically to do all the design work that comes our way” says Järvilehto.

Järvilehto shares that not only do they have different types of Engineering projects, but their customers operate in so many different industries that it increases the requirements for the design software. When asked for some examples, he mentions that recently they have designed the machinery update for the Finnish National Opera with CADMATIC Electrical, but also utilized it to design projects such as a wastewater treatment plant extension and a snack factory for Valio Oy.

The work behind efficient usage

Behind the efficient utilization of CADMATIC Electrical lies a strategic decision to appoint a key user for the software, whose task is to delve deeper into the software and discover those practices that extract the maximum benefit from it.

When asked about the reasoning behind the decision, Järvilehto mentions that in the end, it was quite clear that this was the correct way to move forward.

”We identified that if we continue with the current model without investing in implementation, we won’t gain as much benefit from the software as possible. It has been paramount that the software usage has been brought to its current level,” Järvilehto explains.

As the key user, Mikko Konttinen has initially devoted up to half of his working time to familiarizing himself with the software and to development work. In addition to development work, Konttinen has produced internal training videos aimed at enabling users to work efficiently and receive support when needed.

However, there is still work ahead. Operating in different environments, differing projects and a large number of designers means that it takes time to create standard practices. However, the breadth of CADMATIC Electrical enables its versatile use in various projects, allowing for the spread of practices across the organization once they are established.

”The user needs to see the benefit the software brings so that its adoption occurs without coercion. Finding one good practice and teaching it to everyone, however, takes time,” says Järvilehto.

Kristjan Müül, Vice President of CADMATIC Electrical at Cadmatic points out that the kind of work that Insta does is one of the best practices behind efficient usage of the software:

”Although we provide quality software, to maximize its benefits, customers should have individuals willing to delve deeper into the software. A profound understanding of both one’s own processes and the functionality of the software enables the development of operations to be even more efficient. This is particularly emphasized in large companies,” says Müül.

The benefits of CADMATIC Electrical

The breadth of the software enables a flexible approach to design, allowing users to engage in design in a more natural manner. The software offers alternatives for different design solutions, giving designers more freedom to implement projects in the way they desire.

”CADMATIC Electrical gives you free rein; you can accomplish the same thing in several different ways. When the software is so versatile, using it becomes more enjoyable,” adds Konttinen.

Additionally, projects may involve existing sites undergoing renovation. Documentation for the site already exists, and previous design data should be utilized in new documentation as well. The database features of CADMATIC Electrical enable the execution of even large-scale projects and efficient utilization of design information.

When talking about the efficiency gains CADMATIC Electrical has provided to Insta, both Konttinen, and Järvilehto indicate that even though the standard practices haven’t been implemented organization-wide, there are already projects where the software has improved the design phases. For instance, the use of product models and modular generation has shown to increase efficiency in project execution, and in extensive projects, the database’s mass editing capabilities facilitate data manipulation.

”In some projects where product models and modular generation were used, the actual work progressed faster once the preparatory groundwork was completed,” says Konttinen.

Naturally, delivering high-quality projects is paramount for Insta. Particularly, Electrical’s database and consequently, the interlinking of all documents support the creation of high-quality documents.

”Through the database, any changes are automatically updated in all documents where they appear. When you don’t have to manually consider where to update information, but it happens automatically, it significantly reduces errors” Konttinen explains.

A design environment that enriches design data

Moreover, the breadth of the software brings another significant benefit. By interlinking all documents, it creates a design environment where the software enriches design data independently without human effort. As the information is based on actual documents and project data, they remain consistently up-to-date.

”The software generates information itself without the need for manual input.” 

“For example, concerning cable ‘from-to’ information, you don’t need to worry about it; you just check the cable lists for any deficiencies or errors. You can trust that they are accurate, and you don’t need to spend additional time on them,” Konttinen points out.

”For instance, parts lists are generated based on what you have drawn yourself, and you don’t need to think about them separately,” Konttinen elaborates.