SMARTDRAW IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING:

SmartDraw Energizes Electrical Schematics for Custom Sport Fishing Yachts

Short Circuit
Billy Gill is a marine electrician for American Custom Yachts, a company that builds top-of-the-line custom sport fishing boats ranging in price from four to seven million dollars each. He needed a reliable, time-saving tool for creating professional electrical engineering schematics for the company's yachts.

"Most people at my company were hand-drawing their schematics using colored pens, and then sending them to the in-house architect who transferred the drawings to AutoCAD," explained Gill. "This took a long time, and many important details were left out."

Gill thought he would try AutoCAD himself, but he quickly realized it wasn't a good fit.

"AutoCAD is expensive, and I knew that I would need a lot of training in order to use it properly," he said. "I just wasn't in a position to do this."

Gill decided to search the Internet for AutoCAD alternatives.

"I found SmartDraw on the Internet, and it seemed easier to use than the other programs out there," he said. "I decided to give it a try."

Good Connection
It didn't take long for Gill to realize that SmartDraw was the perfect tool for the task. SmartDraw provides thousands of symbols and templates, including hundreds for electrical engineering. In addition to a user-friendly interface and simple drag-and-drop drawing, the product is also loaded with helpful tips and tutorials.

"The libraries SmartDraw offers are fantastic," said Gill. "And the tutorials were a great help. They showed me the basics really quickly."

In addition to extensive libraries of relevant symbols and templates, SmartDraw also includes many wizards, such as the Electrical Engineering Wizard, which walks users through the process of creating an electrical engineering diagram, step-by-step. What's more, SmartDraw addresses the needs of people like Gill with features to simplify both the creation and presentation of complex diagrams. One such feature new in SmartDraw 7 is "line hops," which can be used to show when wires or lines cross, but do not intersect.

"I also really liked the ability to print interlinking pages so the drawings connect together in the appropriate manner," said Gill.

Gill found that SmartDraw's ease-of-use, coupled with its powerful features, enabled even a novice to create high-quality diagrams. "In a very short time, I found myself completing basic schematic drawings," said Gill. "Soon after, my schematics grew more detailed and descriptive."

All Powered Up
Gill now uses SmartDraw almost every day to rapidly create electrical schematics for his yachts, saving him hours of work.

"Before SmartDraw, if I made a mistake, the drawing was useless and had to be thrown away," he said. "Now, I'm pumping out detailed diagrams in two hours!"

Using SmartDraw, Gill is able to complete his schematics before he finishes installing the electronics. By doing this on a regular basis, he is able to keep up with vessels as they are being built, instead of delivering the drawings to the owner after the boat is completed and shipped.

"With SmartDraw, the quality of our work has improved immensely," he said. "We can print out drawings that help electricians perform installations independently. Before, a supervisor was always required to oversee the project."

Gill's coworkers are so impressed that they have begun asking him to draw other diagrams for them, such as those for fuel and piping. Gill is able to get them started on SmartDraw, with virtually no instruction.

"Everyone is so amazed at how quickly I was able to learn SmartDraw, and how visually attractive the drawings are," said Gill. "The more I use it, the more I impress people!"

About SmartDraw
SmartDraw is an instantly usable drawing and diagramming software that lets anyone create professional flowcharts, organizational charts, floor plans, Gantt charts and calendars, technical diagrams, and more in just a few minutes. Anyone who can use a mouse can immediately enjoy professional results with SmartDraw.

In the course of SmartDraw's more than ten years of doing business, millions of people have downloaded and used it, placing SmartDraw.com in the top 0.1% of the most visited sites on the Internet, and placing SmartDraw as the World's Most Popular Business Graphics Software.

In addition to being popular with users, SmartDraw has also enjoyed industry acclaim, being repeatedly garnered the PC Magazine Ziff-Davis Shareware Award as "Best Business Program," and with SmartDraw.com finding a home in the Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50 in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. This ongoing success is also validated by year-over-year increases in profitability, which continues to be the pattern for SmartDraw.com, the Internet's top source for easy-to-use drawing and diagramming software.