Cut user time in half! Engineering software development reduces error and increases productivity.
THE CLIENT
Our customer is an industry leader in the world of piping. Compared to their competitors, they are unique in that they focus their efforts exclusively on heat tracing, the external application of heat to pipes, tanks and instrumentation.
THE PROBLEM
The client needed a sophisticated yet easy-to-use suite of specialized software tools to provide design and performance information. They had created a tool that attempted to accomplish this. Users of the tool were able to input application-specific information into the program and obtain electrical and thermal performance data.
One particularly useful feature allowed users to design models of pipes based on their future environment. While it was an improvement to previous technology, the process was single segment. To create an accurate final product, however, users actually needed to model complete pipe sections.
Creating software capable of multi-segment design was a much more complicated engineering challenge. Our client envisioned a final product that would save their customers the many hours of manual, and possibly inaccurate, calculations that were otherwise required to complete this task.
THE SOLUTION
Entrance software engineers took the complex thermodynamic equations needed to calculate multi-segment design and codified them into the custom software application. For the end user, this resulted in the ability to quickly design a section of pipe in real time. And because the software only displays compatible design options, they can trust that their choices are appropriate for the environment they are to be placed in.
Competitors’ offerings do not include this feature, so it has become a differentiator for our client. Coming releases will also allow a team of users to separately work on different pipe sections and then put them together as a whole, which will save time and enable collaboration.