Bentley Systems, Incorporated has acquired the assets of Cook-Hurlbert of Austin, Texas, a provider of engineering design software for electric and gas distribution networks. Cook-Hurlbert's Expert Designer spatial network layout and analysis software was among the first developed specifically for utility designers and engineers. Users of this open and integrated software include many utilities such as Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), a Constellation Energy Company, and Xcel Energy.
"The addition of the Cook-Hurlbert products to Bentley's comprehensive portfolio of software solutions represents another exciting milestone for us," said Styli Camateros, vice president, Bentley Geospatial. "It expands our offerings to include software that provides utility companies with optimized network designs. Among the software's many benefits to the utility designer and engineer are increased productivity, enhanced data integrity and systems integration, and streamlined workflows."
"Moreover," Camateros continued, "as part of a long-term strategy initiated by Bentley, the acquisition of Cook-Hurlbert will enable us to do the same thing for electric and gas utilities that the acquisition of Haestad Methods enabled us to do for water projects, and that the acquisition of the FOCUSOne product line enabled us to do for the communications industry: provide best-of-breed geospatial engineering tools for critical network design."
Key features of the Cook-Hurlbert product line include:
-- Functionality for process measurement and tracking, work order management and tracking, design layout, estimating, optimization, structural analysis, vegetation management, and job closeout.
-- An open architecture that allows for seamless integration with Bentley's MicroStation and other popular spatial platforms (GE Power's Smallworld Core, AutoCAD, and ESRI's ArcGIS), as well as external systems such as work management and emergency response and outage management systems.
