Company Overview
AVEVA Group plc (now part of Schneider Electric) is a British industrial software company headquartered in Cambridge, UK. AVEVA specializes in engineering, operations, and asset-performance software for the process, power, and marine industries. The company's roots trace back to the 1960s Cambridge computing research community.
In the CAD/design space, AVEVA is known for AVEVA E3D Design (formerly PDMS), a 3D plant-design platform used in petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and power-generation projects. AVEVA's portfolio spans the entire project lifecycle from conceptual design through operations and maintenance.
Core Design Products
- AVEVA E3D Design: 3D plant design for piping, equipment, structural steel, HVAC, and electrical cable trays — supports multi-discipline concurrent design with real-time clash detection.
- AVEVA Diagrams: P&ID (process and instrumentation diagram) creation with intelligent data linking to the 3D model.
- AVEVA Unified Operations Center: Digital-twin platform connecting design models to real-time operational data for asset monitoring and optimization.
Products in our knowledge base (1)
Market Position & Strategy
AVEVA is a British industrial software company (now fully owned by Schneider Electric since 2023) specializing in engineering, operations, and asset performance software for capital-intensive industries: oil and gas, power generation, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and marine. AVEVA Everything3D (E3D) is the company's flagship 3D plant design tool.
The Schneider Electric acquisition positions AVEVA within a broader industrial automation ecosystem, connecting design-phase engineering software with operational technology (SCADA, DCS, building management). This integration targets the digital twin vision for industrial facilities—connecting the as-designed model to real-time operational data.
AVEVA's market strength is concentrated in the process industries (oil refining, chemical plants, LNG facilities) where its heritage tools (PDMS, now E3D) have decades of installed-base loyalty. The transition from PDMS to E3D represents a modernization of the 3D plant design workflow while maintaining backward compatibility with existing PDMS catalogs and project data.
Technology Platform
AVEVA E3D is built on a multi-user project database that allows concurrent design across disciplines (piping, structural, equipment, instrumentation). Unlike file-based CAD systems, E3D's database architecture means every design change is immediately visible to all team members working on the same project, eliminating the file-checkout bottleneck of traditional CAD workflows.
The catalog-driven design approach is central to E3D: piping components, structural steelwork, and equipment are placed from parametric catalogs that enforce dimensional standards (ASME, EN, DIN). This ensures that every component in the model matches procurement specifications without manual verification.
AVEVA's Unified Engineering environment connects P&ID (process and instrumentation diagrams) with 3D design and electrical/instrumentation engineering, ensuring consistency between schematic and physical representations throughout the project lifecycle.
Learning Resources
- AVEVA Support Portal: Official documentation, knowledge base articles, and product release notes.
- AVEVA University: Structured training programs covering E3D, PDMS, and other AVEVA products with certification options.
- AVEVA World: Annual conference bringing together industrial software users with technical sessions and product roadmap previews.