Insights from the practice: results of the user survey on terminal configurators

Error messages, praise and criticism, suggestions for improvements: The opinion of our users is very important to us when it comes to further improving our ToolSystem. In order to be able to offer real added value with every release and every service pack, we depend on feedback from the practice. How do we gather this feedback? ? We ask – as in the case of the survey on the topic of terminal configurators.

Which terminal configurator do you currently use? The one from Phoenix Contact, the one from Weidmüller, the Wago product or do you rely on the Siemens TIA Portal? We wanted to know exactly and therefore asked our users to participate in our short online survey. Of course, we are not asking this question out of pure curiosity, but against the background of optimizing the AmpereSoft ToolSystem.

Every day we work on further improving our tool system and adapting it to the ever-changing requirements of the market. Because it is our goal to always provide a high-performance tool that optimally supports our customers in a smooth engineering process. That is why it is particularly important for us to have an open ear for their wishes and ideas, because only in this way can we offer the appropriate tools that support users in completing their daily tasks.

Everyone who does Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) professionally was invited to answer the five short questions of our survey and thus influence the further development of the AmpereSoft ToolSystem. In addition to the opportunity to comment on the specific topic of “terminal configurators”, there was also room for other suggestions for optimizing our CAE solution. Now the results are available.

Established terminal manufacturers dominate

Even with the initial question of which terminal configurators are used, the result was a bit of a surprise for us. At 48 percent, almost half of all respondents completely refrained from using a terminal configurator. And this is despite the fact that added value can be achieved with appropriate tools.

The fact that the market is well aware of the benefits is reflected in the study results in a variety of ways. For example, all users confirm that an integration of terminal configurators into our AmpereSoft ToolSystem would be both helpful and desirable, which suggests that the use of corresponding tools would increase. Another indication: According to the results of the survey, in many cases the respondents use several terminal configurators from different manufacturers at the same time.

The three major terminal manufacturers Phoenix Contact, Weidmüller and Wago dominate. While Phoenix Contanct is used by around 36 percent of respondents, Weidmüller (just under 23 percent) and Wago (18 percent) follow at some distance. The predominance of the three large manufacturers confirms our expectations and gives us indications for a wise prioritization of our future further developments of the AmpereSoft ToolSystem.

Increased information density desired

The connection of the Siemens TIA portal was already realized a few years ago. In addition, we will also connect our own configurators in the future. In this way, materials can be configured directly in MatClass and material combinations can be stored. Comprehensive data transfer is also crucial, especially when connecting leading terminal configurators. The information required is diverse. The material data in demand includes:

• Article numbers
• Printer data
• Type designation
• dimensions
• configuration information
• order data
• parts lists
• assembly drawings
• Symbols with the correct number of connections.

In addition, information on whether the terminal blocks are single-level or multi-level is desired in many places. The results of the survey will help us to further optimize our ToolSystem in the future and to align it with the current needs of the market. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all participants for their valuable comments.