As industry moves forward into a technological world and more manufacturers adapt to Industry 4.0, digitalization, automation, and communication have become more important than ever before. According to Stuttgart University, the average specification has more than 300 pages and takes roughly 54 hours to read. As a consequence, pressure and costs begin to mount the moment a manufacturer’s estimating engineers receive information for a new project. How do you keep up with this complex and ever-changing environment?
Rittal's Strategic Partnership with EPLAN
To solve this challenge for our customers, Rittal has partnered with EPLAN to help industries worldwide cut costs and labor hours while automating manual tasks. EPLAN is the leading software solution for machine, plant, and panel builders with the goal of streamlining complex engineering workflows.
Rittal manufactures a full line of industrial automation enclosures in the United States. Alongside our control technologies and space-saving power distribution products, our partnership with EPLAN provides you with industry-leading technology and the power of German engineering that will provide your floor with efficient processes and technology-saving hardware from design to delivery.
Together, Rittal and EPLAN make up the complete Rittal value chain — a partnership aimed at providing you with more than just enclosures and hardware, but also the software that will help you streamline workflows, lower engineering costs through automation, and maintain high-quality data.
The Benefits of Database-driven Engineering
Whether your enterprise is large or small, we strive to enable our customers to apply their expertise more effectively. Incorporating the database-driven engineering capabilities of this value chain carries a variety of benefits, including:
- An engineering architecture with a component article database foundation that allows for using components to drive all design variations
- Components that can be used to create intelligent schematic macros which you can save and reuse
- A single storage location for all component data
- Critical manufacturing automation data for each component
EPLAN works with manufacturers to ensure data is correct and stored in a single place, which saves valuable time when compared with the status quo, which usually involves managing information stored in disparate locations and formats. Every day, we’re becoming more reliant on data to do our jobs as industry continues to embrace advanced technology, and the cost savings from having accurate data and processes is significant.
For example, when building a panel on a floor with a manual process, an engineer may place a marker to indicate where holes are meant to be drilled before punching with a center punch before drilling. This is a time-intensive process with a natural margin for error since essential parts are measured and marked by hand. What if one of the holes was marked in the wrong place? When there’s an error in this process, the costs begin to mount early — and it keeps getting more and more expensive down the line. Working with smart data directly on the shop floor will eliminate these errors and duplicate work.
Digital Manufacturing Brings Increased Productivity
Increased productivity is a significant factor as well. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that implementing digital manufacturing carries the following benefits:
- 45-55% increase in labor productivity in engineering
- 30-50% decrease in machine downtime
- 20-50% reduction in inventory carrying costs
- 10-20% decrease in quality costs
- 10-40% reduction in maintenance costs
The Rittal value chain not only supplies you with the standout quality of German engineering, but also provides you with the software you need to automate time-consuming manual processes, increase productivity and quality, and reduce costs.
Learn how to reduce your engineering time by up to 50% with by downloading our whitepaper!
