A project brief is the document that turns "we need an electrical control system" into a quotation, a control panel drawing set, and an acceptance test everyone agrees on. When a control project goes off schedule, the cause is rarely the choice of controller brand or programming language; it is operational detail that was never written down. The sections below are what an engineering supplier such as Shenzhen PowerDe Automation Precision Equipment Co., Ltd. needs from your side before electrical control system development starts, and what each section prevents from being decided for you.
1. The machine or process the control system has to run
Describe the equipment in operational terms rather than marketing terms. "One steam cleaning station for an indoor garage" tells a controls engineer almost nothing. "One fixed cleaning station, one operator, batch cleaning of vehicle exteriors and engine compartments, several cycles per hour, idle between shifts" already implies the I/O layout, the stop functions, and the heating sequence.
For each machine or line in the project, state:
- What the equipment does, and which products, parts, or surfaces pass through it.
- Cycle structure: cycle time, batch size, shift pattern, and behaviour at changeover and at end of shift.
- Which sub-systems need control — heaters, pumps, valves, motors, conveyors, sensors, or vision.
- Whether the scope is a single station, a multi-station line, or one unit that must coordinate with others.
On cleaning and process equipment, the wet environment and the heating load shape the control design far more than the operator interface does. The Cleaning Equipment Series page describes mobile active-water cleaning machines with dry-steam, wet-steam, and hot-water modes for indoor garages and narrow outdoor parking areas, and the fixed models are listed with selectable dry and wet steam. Each mode needs its own enable conditions and its own response when something fails.
2. Electrical supply and the boundary with existing equipment
A panel cannot be sized from a photograph, and an interface cannot be specified from a brand name. Document the boundary between what you own and what the supplier delivers:
- Supply at the installation point: voltage, phase, frequency, available breaker rating, and whether a separate circuit exists for heating loads.
- Existing control equipment that stays in place, with its model, power terminals, communication port, and protocol.
- Signals the new system must read from those machines and signals it must return — start/stop, ready, fault, mode or recipe select — and which party owns each one.
- Devices that are explicitly outside the new system, so no one assumes someone else covered them.
Fixed installations need the most precision here. The parameter table on the Fixed Steam Cleaning Machine PowerDe HW02 product page records a 220 V working voltage with 6 kW heating power, an 80 L tank, and selectable dry or wet steam alongside a vacuum function. Those are exactly the values that determine supply capacity, tank-level sensing, heating enable conditions, and mode switching logic, which is why they belong in the brief and not in a wiring meeting.
3. Operating requirements for the electrical control system, and the people who use it
Describe how the machine runs on an ordinary day, and name the roles that touch the control system:
- Operator actions per cycle, and which of them you want automated instead.
- Who may change settings and who may not. Operator, maintenance, and engineering access levels are usually enough.
- Interface language, and whether more than one language is required on the display.
- Alarms the plant must act on, and the required response: stop, hold, or continue with a warning.
- Data to be recorded — run hours, cycles, temperatures, faults — and whether that data has to leave the machine.
Protection requirements belong in this section, not in a footnote. The HW02 product page lists leakage, short-circuit, high-temperature, high-voltage, water-shortage, and high-voltage-explosion protection among the machine's protective functions. Whether such protection is built into the equipment or must be provided by your supply-side devices changes the panel design, so write down which side is responsible.
4. Site, utility, and environmental conditions at the installation point
Environmental data drives enclosure rating, cable routing, component selection, and price. Provide the installation address and the conditions there: indoor or outdoor, ambient temperature range, humidity, dust, spray or wash-down exposure, and floor space available. For mobile equipment, describe the working area — a narrow indoor garage and an open parking lot lead to different power, storage, and safety decisions for the same machine.
Then list the constraints that are easy to forget: door and lift dimensions for delivery, whether the unit must be moved by forklift or pallet jack, noise limits for the area, water supply and drainage available at the point of use, and any site rule that applies to that area.
5. Control scope, deliverables, and acceptance
A brief that names only a machine leaves acceptance undefined. State the control scope and what you expect to receive, and how you will sign it off:
- Scope split: design, panel build, wiring, programming, commissioning, and training — and who performs each.
- Documents: electrical drawings, I/O list, program with a version note, wiring diagram, spare-parts list, and operating instructions.
- Acceptance criteria written as checkable items: the modes that must run, the sequence that must repeat, and the fault response that the control system must produce.
- Change control: how a change request is raised, priced, and approved once design has started.
Say at the start whether you need a new machine with its own control system or a control upgrade on equipment you already run. Custom and integrated equipment work is presented on the Solutions page, while product development, hardware testing, manufacturing automation, and integrated engineering team services appear as separate entries under Products. A retrofit brief and a new-build brief answer different questions, and combining them is a frequent reason a first quotation arrives with conditions attached.
6. Schedule, budget range, and open questions on the control scope
Give the real date the control system must be running, including any planned shutdown window that fixes the installation date, and a budget range rather than a single figure. A supplier uses the range to decide how much automation to propose; without it, the first quotation is a guess. Then list the points you have not settled — a utility upgrade not yet approved, a second machine that may be added later, an interface another supplier has not confirmed. Marking those as open is more useful than leaving them out, because the control architecture can be designed to absorb them instead of being rebuilt after the fact.
Completeness check before you send it
Read the draft against this list. Any empty line will be filled by an assumption in the quotation:
- Every machine or station named, with its cycle and its controlled sub-systems.
- Supply and signal boundary for each interface point.
- Roles, access levels, interface language, and required alarms.
- Site and utility conditions at the installation point, plus physical access limits.
- Deliverables, acceptance checks, and the change-control route.
- Date, budget range, and open items.
Send that document together with your product requirement and installation address, and the exchanges that follow deal with choices in the control design instead of definitions. For enquiries about cleaning or automation equipment, use the contact details on the Contact page.
