Since the beginning of 2000, in the R&D department of ABB SACE, a software based on Excel spreadsheet was developed for the design of mechanism of molded case circuit breakers with the purpose of identifying, collecting, developing, preserving and making knowledge accessible. The design of mechanism of molded case circuit breakers is a complex task: to contain the costs of production it’s necessary to use very few mechanical components with which you want to satisfy many design requirements.
From a design point of view, it is necessary to manage several variables (about 20) and several objective functions (about 20). The code base has grown significantly over the years and the developers adopted many strategies based on design experience, ensuring that the software could become a standard shared by all designers.
A revision was necessary in order to re-organize it, in such a way that it can now be continuously improved from the points of view of user-friendliness and features.
EnginSoft collaboration succeeded in making the software more user friendly and manageable as far as inputs and outputs, at the same time increasing the objective function readability allowing for a better choice of the design variables.