CUSTOM CABLE DESIGNER
Job Story: a stand alone program for Windows

Custom Cable Designer is a stand alone program written by Forcade Associates for a manufacturer of oil well power cables. The cables must be customized to work in the hostile and variable conditions of the world's oil wells. The Custom Cable Designer program enables Lawrence Technology engineers to quickly select the cable components that are compatible with a given well's conditions and power requirements. We accomplished this by working with Lawrence Technology engineers to integrate numerous complex technical variables into the application.

The opening screen allows the user to choose between the cable designer, company background information, and a catalog of standard cable designs. The background image was also used in a brochure for the client to make use of the equity in the image and to tie together the brochure and the program.

The cable designer module allows the user to design a custom cable by selecting appropriate cable components. The program insures that the available components are appropriate to the specified oil well conditions. Before each component is selected, the program checks well conditions and the presence of other cable components. It then displays only those choices that are valid under the given conditions. This helps the user avoid cable components that could fail or that are incompatible with other specified components.These checks insure the integrity of the cable design.

The user interface consists of a series of tabbed panels that allow the user to move through the design process, one component at a time. The user may choose the material for a cable component by clicking a tabbed panel or by clicking the corresponding component on the cable image. As the user specifies the components the inset cable image changes to reflect the current materials and cable structure selected.

Once a custom cable has been designed, the program can generate a series of reports that describe the exact properties, construction, and specifications of the custom cable.

In addition to the dynamic custom cable reports, the program contains a series of predefined reports and brochures that can be displayed or printed.