In many plants the electrical documentation of existing equipment lives in ELCAD. New machines, on the other hand, almost always arrive with EPLAN projects, and customers or group standards increasingly require EPLAN Electric P8. By the next major extension at the latest, the question comes up whether the plant stays in the old system or whether now is the right time to switch.
We work in ELCAD, EPLAN and WSCAD. From that position the honest answer is rarely a clear either or.
The question is rarely which system is better
Both systems produce schematics, terminal diagrams and cable lists that meet the standards. Anyone who has documented cleanly in ELCAD for years owns usable documentation, even if the system is no longer the newest. Switching alone does not make poor drawings better.
Other questions decide. Who will be able to edit the drawings in five or ten years? Which format do your customers and suppliers require? And how much work is in the existing documentation that will have to come along at some point?
What speaks for switching to EPLAN
The most common reason is not technology but capacity. Designers who handle ELCAD with confidence are becoming fewer, and newcomers to the profession have usually learned EPLAN. With every retirement in your own team it gets harder to maintain the ELCAD documentation.
External requirements add to this. Many machine builders and groups require the documentation as an EPLAN project because they base their own maintenance on it. And article data from many manufacturers is readily available for EPLAN, which speeds up building an article master.
What speaks for staying with the existing system
Not every plant has to move to EPLAN. A plant that hardly changes over the years can stay in the old system, as long as someone cleanly enters the few changes. A migration takes time, and that time pays off above all for plants that are extended, changed often or newly built.
That is why a staged approach is often the most economical. New projects start in EPLAN from day one. Existing plants are transferred when a larger change is due anyway. Until then the documentation is maintained in ELCAD, also by an external partner if nobody in house has time for it any more.
Can ELCAD projects be converted to EPLAN?
Partly. There are tools that convert ELCAD schematics into EPLAN projects. They save drawing work but do not replace checking. After conversion, cross-references, article references, terminals and cables have to be right, otherwise terminal diagram, cable list and bill of materials give wrong results.
The reports are therefore the best test. A converted project is only finished when its lists match the plant. Whether conversion pays off or a structured re-capture is more economical depends on the size of the plant and the state of the documents. The most reliable way to find out is to transfer and check one typical plant first.
The standard first, then the legacy projects
The most expensive mistake in a switch is to start with the first converted project. Whoever develops the EPLAN standard only during the transfer carries every ambiguity along, and every further project multiplies it.
So the starting point is the designation structure, article master, macros, forms and page layout. This is also the moment to decide whether the existing designation is kept or changed over to IEC 81346. A migration touches the whole documentation anyway, so there is no better time. More on this in our article on designation in EPLAN.
And what about WSCAD?
The same considerations apply to WSCAD. Here too the existing documentation can stay in the system as long as it is maintained, and here too a switch starts with the standard. We do not assume a converter we would rely on for WSCAD. We re-capture WSCAD projects in a structured way in EPLAN, based on the existing drawings, bills of materials and terminal diagrams.
How we go about it
We first review the existing documentation and agree what has to be transferred, what can wait and what may stay in the old system. Then we build the EPLAN standard or adopt yours, transfer a first plant and decide with you which route pays off for the rest. We keep maintaining the ELCAD or WSCAD documentation until the changeover.
How this works in detail is described on our page about migration to EPLAN. If you first only need help maintaining your existing documentation, see ELCAD design services and WSCAD design services. For new projects in EPLAN we support you with EPLAN design services.