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.
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.
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.