A new design strategy in electrical engineering is the hierarchical design philosophy. Due to development needs, the step by step sophistication of functions over several grades of details is supported.

E³.cable is one of the first E-CAE systems supporting hierarchical design functionality. Bottom-up or top-down design approach becomes real. That means the electrical system can be displayed in various detailed representations and become step by step a more detailed or more abstract representation.

The hierarchical blocks can be stacked in an unlimited number of hierarchy levels. The block structure is a structure element of the E³.series project tree and inherits attributes to the top level hierarchy block.

Under a hierarchy block any number of documents can be placed. This means, for example, in the machinery industry that one block can represent the complete cabinet including the schematic drawing and panel layout.

For the aerospace industry a hierarchy block may represent a specific functionality which includes the cable drawings or internal connectivity of equipment. With the hierarchical design approach the project structure becomes easier to read and the re-use of predefined functions saves time and money.