Industrial EIT here. Is data collection for arc flash updates as painful for you guys as it is for me? Sketching an app idea to fix it.
Hey everyone,
I’ve been working as a power systems EIT for a few years, and I am losing my mind over how painful, slow, and expensive it is to update arc flash studies and facility single-lines.
Right now, whenever a plant makes a minor change (like adding an MCC or swapping a breaker), the model goes out of date because hiring a traditional engineering firm to send a guy out with a clipboard is too expensive. The result? Crews are opening panels looking at 6-year-old labels and dusty AutoCAD drawings.
I’m working on a personal nights-and-weekends project to fix this workflow, and I need some honest, boots-on-the-ground feedback.
I’m sketching a mobile UI designed specifically for plant techs and maintenance electricians rather than power engineers. The concept is a "bottom-up" data builder:
You walk up to a panel, select the equipment type from a simple visual dropdown (e.g., Square D, Eaton, standard conduit types, etc.).
The app uses a parent-child hierarchy, so it automatically knows the voltage and upstream constraints based on the gear feeding it. You just snap photos of the device nameplate.
Hit submit, and the app instantly calculates the approximate IEEE 1584 boundaries and lets you print a temporary yellow "Provisional" warning label right there on the floor.
In the background, the data and photos go to a remote portal where a licensed freelance PE audits the inputs against your photos, approves the model, and unlocks the official, stamped NFPA 70E permanent labels and an auto-generated PDF single-line diagram.
If you guys had an app like this on the floor, would you actually use it to log gear changes, or is a paper clipboard and a sharpie completely unstoppable? Where does this layout drop the ball or fail real-world field conditions?