How the digital twin simplifies your control cabinet designs and production

Digital twin: Does this make you think of a 3D model as a practical orientation for panel building? Or instead as a vision of the future for digital transformation?

With standardized schematic creation as a foundation, control cabinet designs in 3D are also in reach. Venture closer to the factory floor with Eplan. Your colleagues in production will thank you just as much as your customers!

Your workflow

Different worlds? Electrical designing in the office and panel building on the factory floor

As an engineer, do you always have an eye on how your colleagues on the factory floor are making your designs a reality? Two-dimensional schematics can naturally be used to equip and cable control cabinets. But some of the needed information is still missing: Where exactly do components and bore holes need to be placed on the mounting plate? And the operating elements on the door? Where should the cable ducts, DIN rails and terminals be installed?

If there aren’t any exact specifications, various queries from the production team and the client are inevitable. An acute shortage of skilled workers also has negative effect on production and delivery schedules. Is there anything you can do about this in electrical design?

Panel building with 2D schematics

  • Where exactly are the components placed in the control cabinet? Does it all fit?
  • No information about where cable ducts or bore holes should be placed
  • Assembly and cabling can only be realized by experienced employees
  • Every finished control cabinet looks different, despite being produced in series

⇒ Questions, re-work and a lack of personnel waste both time and precious resources

Panel building with a 3D model

  • All components are already positioned on the mounting plate and displayed realistically
  • The entire structure of the control cabinet is clearly described
  • Understandable visualizations for coordination and project approvals
  • Production assistance tools can guide even inexperienced workers through mounting and wiring

⇒ Virtual prototype for fast panel building and smooth approval processes

Four advantages of virtual prototyping for panel building

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That's how our customers in panel building benefit from working with Eplan

"Error rates went immediately to zero, every length of wire length fits perfectly, and the control cabinet also looks much better."

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Using Eplan Software to create the digital twin for your panel building

There’s still a lot to do after creating the schematics. Eplan provides you the software for the 3D designs of your control and switchgear systems. Eplan is also utilized on the production floor to simplify control cabinet manufacturing based on the digital twin.

Do you have challenges in engineering and manufacturing of machines?

Discover your possibilities with Eplan in mechanical engineering as well. Learn more about automated engineering and machine wiring.

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machine-building-journey

Would you like to find out more about Eplan’s software and services? We’re happy to help!