Picture an engineer sitting at their screen, faced with an Excel file full of technical data and the prospect of spending the whole day wrestling with a buggy piece of software. This all-too-familiar scene at Itec Engineering was about to become a thing of the past.
At RANSAU SYSTEME, we developed a custom business software solution that transformed this process entirely.
The context
Itec Engineering is a company specialising in electrical engineering and fibre optics for the oil and gas sector. Their in-house tool, "Moulinette", built in Visual Basic on Access, generated AutoCAD drawings from Excel files. But after three years without maintenance, errors were piling up. Engineers were losing hours correcting mistakes in the automatic generation output. Everything needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
The analysis: understand before rebuilding
Our first mission was to immerse ourselves in Itec Engineering's technical world. During the first few weeks, we analysed their workflows and, above all, dissected the legacy software line by line. The goal was to understand every business rule and every technical nuance. Users had developed implicit rules over time that had to be preserved.
The vision: rethinking the user experience
The ambition was clear: carry over all existing functionality while delivering a modern user experience and a platform built for future growth.
The mockup presented to Itec Engineering introduced a new approach:
- A modern, intuitive user interface
- An integrated project management system
- A centralised database
- A system of customisable drawing templates
The architecture: choosing the right technologies
To meet this technical challenge, a robust and future-proof technology stack was selected:
- C# was the natural choice for business logic, offering both performance and maintainability.
- Avalonia enabled the creation of a modern user interface within the .NET ecosystem.
- MySQL was chosen for data management.
- Python proved indispensable for data processing and the artificial intelligence capabilities to be developed.
- GitLab rounded out the ecosystem with a full CI/CD pipeline enabling deployment tracking.
An architecture designed to address immediate needs while preparing the software for future evolution.
The innovation: data engineering and artificial intelligence
Two aspects of the project called for a particularly innovative approach:
- Reading and interpreting source Excel data
- Optimising drawing generation
Every algorithm developed had one objective: save engineers time or reduce the risk of errors.
Data engineering work was carried out to automatically understand and validate the Excel file formats used by Itec Engineering. The system analyses files, detects inconsistencies, suggests corrections, and automatically validates the Excel data.
The results: from 50h to 45min
The numbers speak for themselves, exceeding initial expectations.
Where user data entry previously took an average of 20 hours, it now takes just 20 minutes. Drawing generation, which used to monopolise 30 hours of work, is now completed in 25 minutes.
These figures were measured on complex projects involving between 100 and 120 drawings to generate.
Beyond the numbers, engineers can now focus on their core expertise. New projects are possible, lead times are shorter, and quality has improved.
Facing a similar challenge? Whether it's modernising ageing business software or automating technical processes, discover our custom software development services or contact us to discuss your project.