Schneider Electric announces new release of ArcFM Designer XI

Schneider Electric, the industry leader in Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions for utilities and communication providers, announced a new release of ArcFM Designer XI. The latest version of the next generation design app incorporates additional tooling to handle more complex work and job types to serve as the primary design tool at any utility.

Modern utilities are expressing increased urgency for efficiency and quality data to feed mission-critical systems; and stakeholders across an enterprise require access to proposed work information to accurately design, analyze, plan, approve and schedule work. Building from experience, Schneider Electric turned ArcFM Designer XI into a more complete tool that addresses the many needs of modern utilities through new capabilities, including:

• Custom Workflow Tasks: Quickly and easily share design information with other tools and business systems to do things like generate cost reports, open CAD drawings and get driving directions to the design location directly from the application.
• Reference Maps: Bring other GIS data into ArcFM Designer XI to determine how other facilities – such as water assets or environmental areas – may impact a design. These maps use the Mobile Sync technology in the background to keep them up-to-date and easy to download for end users.
• Basemap Improvements: Designers can easily toggle between different basemaps, such as imagery and streetmap data. Designer XI also supports the Vector TPK format, so basemap downloads can be smaller and optimized for end users for offline use.
• Electric Network Component: Designer XI now has the capability of placing more network components during a design, so all materials can be represented and accurately accounted for in the design. This allows Designer XI to be the primary design tool at a utility, and it can be used for all job types.
• Send to Placement Tool: Designers can quickly reuse a set of CUs that have been placed in a design, so they don’t have to be recreated from scratch.
• Display X, Y Coordinates with Cursor: A new view of the x, y coordinates allows designers to place an asset at a determined GPS point and gives the user more control over precision placement of new assets.

ArcFM Designer XI combines the strengths of Schneider Electric’s historical design tools into a single, purpose-built design application that helps utilities transition from legacy technology to new technology. The application delivers simplicity through a user experience focused on the designer, optimizes efficiency by speeding up the design and construction lifecycle to reduce backlogs and provides intelligence by unlocking networking engineering analysis at design time.

“For the latest release of ArcFM Designer XI, we set out to deliver an application that is prepared to execute extremely complex job types,” said Jay Stinson, general manager at Schneider Electric. “The exceptional performance of the application will enable utilities to accelerate their work and produce high-quality designs more efficiently, eradicating the various roadblocks utilities experience in the design lifecycle.”

Schneider Electric collaborated with Nova Scotia Power, the first ArcFM Designer XI customer, to add new enhancements to the application, including the Electric Network Component and the send to placement tool.

“With ArcFM Designer XI, we are able to leverage new digital capabilities to advance our overall design process” said Glen MacLeod, Business Integration Manager at Nova Scotia Power. “ArcFM Designer XI enables us to integrate our tools and streamline the end-to-end design process resulting in a truly digital design and construction workflow. Schneider Electric’s receptiveness to our feedback and ability to evolve the Designer XI solution has been extremely beneficial in helping our utility get full value for our customers.”

ArcFM Designer XI is part of the ArcFM Solution XI Series, an ecosystem of applications that streamline the design and construction workflow, enabling utilities to get work done more efficiently. ArcFM Editor XI, ArcFM Web XI and ArcFM Mobile XI fill out the rest of the ecosystem and offer the most comprehensive utility GIS solution available today. The result – streamlined workflows, minimized use of paper and a reduced work backlog, enabling utilities to address the challenges facing today’s digital environment.