Page 28 - EngineerIT September 2021

AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

Process optimisation in control

cabinet manufacturing

Standardisation and digitaliation are key

Jens Jüngling, portfolio manager, Industrial Components and Electronics, Phoenix Contact Electronics GmbH, Bad Pyrmont, Germany

ontrol cabinet manufacturing is facing constantly growing interfaces – without any system interruptions. Modern CAE
challenges – increasingly short delivery times are planning systems, such as those available from EPLAN, WSCAD
Cexpected while retaining a high degree of flexibility. With and Zuken, support electrical planning, documentation and data
Complete line, Phoenix Contact offers a system comprising transfer – thus influencing all subsequent process steps.
technologically advanced and coordinated hardware and software
products, plus consulting services – intended to optimise all Data is the new gold
processes in control cabinet manufacturing Without digitally described products, CAE software is unable to
Ever-increasing technical complexity, batch sizes of one work effectively. It can take a huge amount of effort to obtain or
with shorter delivery times, growing international pressure from create these data records if it is not possible to access inventory
competitors and on costs, a changing demographic with an data when developing a new product. Depending on the system
increasing shortage of skills – the control cabinet manufacturing and calculation method used, it can cost as much as €1500 to
industry is more than familiar with these challenges. As in many create the master data for a new component. For more complex
other areas, it has also become increasingly clear that challenges products like a controller, it can take a full working day or more to
of this magnitude cannot be tackled successfully by simply program individual CAE macros.
implementing individual measures. It is time to rethink processes Digital Engineering benefits from suppliers who provide all the
and adopt a new,holistic approach. necessary data records for download in standardised form such as
eCl@ss and in widely-used CAE formats. This cuts the time spent
Efficient communication is the catalyst on research, creation and maintenance from several hours or even
For comprehensive process optimisation, it is absolutely crucial that days, to mere minutes.
the entire process chain is examined: from the initial project idea The different ways in which work is organised in the developer
to startup, including all internal areas, suppliers and customers. team needs to be taken into consideration. The automatic
Communication between the areas and players involved is crucial. integration of all product data in the data portal of the CAE system
Here too, digitalisation offers unprecedented possibilities. provides practical benefits. However, if the developer team
New and further developments usually start to take shape organises the data on file servers, the Phoenix Contact Data Portal
properly in the early project phase. This is the crucial moment in the makes it easier to quickly download the necessary data records,
overall process – it is here that the course is set. The selection of the for example.
products used not only determines the functionality of the application, Following electrical planning, the BOM and documentation
it also impacts the procurement, assembly and startup costs. need to be completed, print files need to be created for marking,
The most influential change in the development environment and the products need to be ordered. This is as far as the functions
is the efficient use of the available data, the software and of most CAE systems go – but using standardised interfaces
allows additional task packages to be processed effectively.
The Project Complete planning and marking software from
Phoenix Contact checks and completes the terminal strips by adding
the necessary accessories and supports the creation of print files
for control cabinet marking (Figure 2). The connection to the online
shop means that information on the price and delivery time is already
available in the planning process. With just a few clicks, basic process
steps are completed much faster and errors are avoided.

Figure 1: Standardisation and digitalisation: laying the foundations for Figure 2: Simplified process steps: the Project Complete planning and
process optimisation in control cabinet manufacturing marking software provides interfaces to widely used CAE systems

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