Combination of technology and expertise for smart cabinet building

Weidmüller, Komax, Zuken and Armbruster Engineering set up the "Smart Cabinet Building" initiative for new solutions in the field of control cabinet building Detmold, 20. April 2020. Increasing the potential of digitilisation in cabinet building processes with tailored, consistent solutions. To this end, the companies Weidmüller, Komax, Zuken and Armbruster Engineering founded the "Smart Cabinet Building" initiative in April. These companies are technology leaders in various sectors of cabinet building, who are now bundling their competencies and know-how for the very first time. "The aim is to provide integrated solutions for current and future challenges in the area of cabinet building by networking technology and expertise across all process steps", explains Volker Bibelhausen, CTO and Speaker of the Executive Board at Weidmüller. Holistic approach to the value-added process Digitalisation offers vast potential to improve manufacturing processes. However, productivity can only be successfully increased by taking a comprehensive view to the individual aspects of the value chain. Huge efficiency increases can be achieved taking advantage of the optimisation potential that exists in the interfaces between the individual process steps. "Cabinet building in particular, with its still high ratio of manual activities, offers very promising approaches here. This ranges from component selection to the pre-assembly of wire harnesses, equipment and housings, right through to assisted final assembly and testing prior to commissioning", explains Matijas Meyer, CEO of the Komax Group. Perfect complementary expertise Weidmüller is incorporating its expertise in the automatic assembly and marking of terminal blocks, as well as in manual tasks. Zuken is contributing its competence in digital development data that is provided for automatic processing and used on Komax machines for fully automated wire processing, while Armbruster Engineering complements the initiative with its long-standing expertise in assisted assembly. Perfect interaction of product, process and production equipment "Panel building is situated in a pronounced field of conflict: An almost unmanageable number of technical features in the face of fast-changing customer requirements, high cost and price pressure with tight deadlines. This can only succeed if the possibilities opened up by automation and digitalization are adopted to create a perfect interaction between product, process and production equipment. Especially the combination of fully automated solutions and digital assistance systems that guide the employee during manual installation as well as control and monitor the tools being used is a key factor for success factor in practice", explains Henning Vogler, Managing Director at Armbruster Engineering. The digital twin as the base The base for networking the process steps is the “digital twin”, a complete digital description of the control panel and its components that can be used to drive the various process steps. Joachim Frank, Managing Director at Zuken E3 GmbH, adds: "Through the cooperation in the 'Smart Cabinet Building' initiative, we want to make our contribution to developing substantial optimization potential in building electrical cabinets including their interconnects based on the digital twin."

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