“Southeast Michigan’s premier electrical contractor,” Summit Electric, Inc. is a full-service electrical contractor focusing on commercial and industrial projects. Along with exceptional customer service and a teamwork approach, design/build capability helps to differentiate Summit from competitors.
According to Mark E. Kunch, Vice President, Design Master Electrical plays a key role in the design/build component of Summit’s business. “As an electrical contractor, we don’t need to use engineering software every day,” Mr. Kunch explains. “But we love Design Master Electrical and find it very cost-effective to own.”
“Besides using it on all our design/build projects, Design Master is a big help in meeting the demands of our customers who turn to us when they find they need a drawing, often unexpectedly and on short notice,” adds Mr. Kunch. “Our ability to quickly generate high-quality drawings in-house saves our customers the trouble of hiring an engineering firm just to create a drawing or resolve an issue. Design Master also makes it easy for us to provide drawings on request to electrical inspectors or plant engineers, or for permitting and compliance.”
Mr. Kunch is one of two Design Master users at Summit. He purchased the software in 2008 after the drafting package they had been using was no longer supported. “Our drafting software went down with a support issue on a Thursday,” recalls Mr. Kunch. “I purchased Design Master on a Friday, downloaded it and played with it over the weekend, and on Monday started designing a project that had to be done in a few days.”
“A big reason I chose Design Master is how intuitive and easy it is to use. I didn’t want to have to go through hours and hours of training learning a highly complex program. I watched a couple of tutorials, made a call or two to the support line and we were up and running.
“Design Master has worked great for us ever since, and it’s a big time-saver even over the drafting software it replaced,” Mr. Kunch adds.
“Whenever I’ve called support, they’ve been right on top of it,” continues Mr. Kunch. “Typically I do all my designing on the weekends. If I have an issue I e-mail them, and when I get into the office on Monday morning there’s an e-mail waiting for me that either directs me to a solution or asks me to call in for hands-on help. They can just log into my system, see what the problem is and fix my drawing right then, online.”
“Another reason I chose Design Master is that it works seamlessly inside of AutoCAD, because all the drawings we get from architects and engineers are in AutoCAD. In my experience there have been no compatibility issues whatsoever,” states Mr. Kunch.
“I can do a project from start to finish in Design Master. When I’m done designing—plugging in the outlets and putting in the light fixtures and whatnot—I have a complete package. I’m done. I don’t have to do anything else in some other program.
“I especially love how Design Master generates its panel legends, which formerly was so time-consuming because you had to manually calculate everything. With Design Master everything is done automatically right upfront when you’re working with your circuits.
“But at the same time, I also like that Design Master is easy to customize. I’m not stuck with their library; I can create whatever I want. This lets us establish our own standards and gives our drawings a distinctive look.
“As I’m designing, Design Master is automatically doing all the calculations and symbols and everything else that I need to submit to get a stamp. It’s one-stop shopping!” Mr. Kunch relates.
