When wiring motor starters, contactors and pilot devices, paying attention to the resources being delegated through intelligent planning can do wonders.
People like to attribute time to money, but what they do forget is that every single factor plays a vital role in reducing costs, right from design to commissioning. Materials play an equally important role as time itself in terms of contributing to cost savings.
Device-level wiring systems are taking over conventional wiring systems, and even though they make not make an impression due to the age-old reliability of conventional techniques, facts & figures can set the record straight.
Time Reduction
The estimated time required to wire motor starters, contactors and pilot devices is approximately 4 hours and 29 minutes when conventional techniques are used. In retrospect, if device-level wiring systems are used, the time can be brought down to an astounding 41 minutes. This is an 85% reduction in the wiring time, which translates directly into saved costs from engineering & testing.
Material Reduction
If 1600 motor starters were to be installed, almost 7.83 miles of control wiring would be required. But, if device-level wiring was to be introduced, the distance would be reduced to 0.45 mile of flat cable. Calculating the material costs involved, it can be found that device-level wiring can save over $4300, even though the flat cable costs $0.47/unit more. In addition, the time that would be saved directly would be almost 22-man days, which once again would lead to lower labor costs.
