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Stedin is facing a significant change in working methods. The grid manager will soon say goodbye to its own drawing standards and switch to the Dutch CAD Standard. The company sees this transition as a step toward the future, in which uniform and unambiguous drawing work will provide major benefits.
"We will use the NLCS in a lot of our work," says Hugo Warbout, Tracé Engineer Business Complex, a department specializing in high-voltage business networks. "Think of the construction, maintenance and repair of low, medium and high voltage networks, but also gas pipelines and telecom pipelines."
To date, Stedin has been working with four different sign standards, a legacy that stems in part from the company's origins: a combination of multiple grid operators. "Having different standards is not ideal," said Warbout. "To the outside world it can cause confusion, but also internally. For example, when colleagues assist in another department or in another region. Both internally and externally we want to adopt one uniform Stedin working method. And since the NLCS has been the drawing standard within the GWW sector for some time, the choice was not very difficult."
Warbout cites the position of (local) governments, for example, which demand the NLCS as a mandatory drawing standard. He understands the logic behind this: "The ground is increasingly full of cables and pipes, so it is important to work carefully. Imagine we have to lay a new route in an area where the water network operator also wants to build a transport pipeline. Then governments will require cooperation, so that the ground only has to be opened once. In such a case, you have to be able to read each other's drawings without having to 'translate' them first. That way you work faster and avoid the chance of mistakes. After all: you all speak the same language."
Jennifer Regales, Operations Support project manager (responsible for supporting the four operational Stedin chains), also cites uniformity as the main advantage. "Drawings in NLCS format are easily interchangeable. For us, that is an important reason to communicate in one and the same language from now on. By doing so, we take the quality and reliability of our projects to a higher level."
Arkance Systems supports Stedin employees in implementing the NLCS. Regales: "They have been involved from the design phase to ensure a good NLCS setup in our organization. And the fact that they are helping us implement the NLCS underlines the good cooperation." Warbout adds: "We already know Arkance Systems through the software licenses we purchase from them, such as the one for InfraCAD. We are very satisfied with that. For example, Arkance Systems really listens to comments. You can also assume that every update or implementation really is a step forward. Another advantage: they work together with other grid managers. So they understand the challenges we face and can respond to them in a targeted way."
Warbout cites the "living" flexible library structure as one of the pros of InfraCAD. Because even though the standard NLCS library is extensive, it is not sufficient for Stedin. Warbout explains, "For example, the NLCS has symbols for different voltage levels, but not for the different gas pressure stages. We are now working with Arkance Systems to come up with a solution for that. This is an important issue for many colleagues. Certainly, we are excited to be able to work with one unified drawing standard, but while maintaining our advanced design capabilities."
Other advantages of the NLCS-InfraCAD tandem, according to Warbout, are the ease of importing KLIC reports and the automatic generation of a clear legend. "Our own legend contains all the symbols we use, even though the vast majority do not appear in the drawing in question. That produces a large block of information, which can seem quite overwhelming. With InfraCAD, you can create a legend with a single click, containing only the symbols used. This makes your drawing a lot clearer and very clean."
Creating support for the NLCS is a careful process. Regales explains that a group has been formed with colleagues from all areas of the company. They communicate the NLCS information to their supporters, provide explanations and answer questions. Meanwhile, the NLCS at Stedin is in the starting blocks: the software is ready for installation and after the final user-level information sessions (by Arkance Systems), the long-awaited efficiency improvements can be implemented. "Whether I am looking forward to it? Definitely," said Warbout. "The NLCS provides clarity. With less energy and a smaller margin of error, you get better drawings on paper. Soon it will no longer matter which of the responsible colleagues makes a drawing and we all speak the same language."
NLCS
The NLCS (Dutch CAD Standard) is a uniform drawing standard for civil engineering. The information in an NLCS drawing is unambiguous, complete and clearly structured. As a result, drawings can be exchanged easily, the chance of errors is smaller and the entire GWW chain can save on costs. The NLCS is a BIM Level 1 standard and is managed by the BIM Loket.
About Arkance Systems
Arkance Systems is a European organization of specialists that supports organizations in the digital transformation to BIM and Industry 4.0 with a complete portfolio of hardware, software and services. With three offices (Almelo, Oss and Veenendaal) and nearly 100 employees, Arkance Systems is the largest Autodesk specialist in the Netherlands for the Building, Infrastructure and Manufacturing industries.
About Stedin
Working together to create a living world full of new energy. That is Stedin's mission. Stedin is the independent grid operator of the gas and electricity grid in most of South Holland and the provinces of Utrecht and Zeeland. Stedin ensures that over 2.3 million households and business customers have access to energy for living, working and doing business. In doing so, Stedin is working on a sustainable energy system that will remain reliable and affordable in the future. Our operating area is a predominantly urban and industrial region. The energy infrastructure in this area is complex and the dependency on energy is high. Stedin has over 4,000 employees and its headquarters are located in Rotterdam.
