Text Hans Robert Koch ––– Photography
An initial peek inside the production building, which covers an area of around 100.000 ft², already suggests that a lot of things here are different from what you would normally expect to see at an industrial production plant. It is bright, clean and quiet – ideal working conditions for the 140 or so employees. Something else quickly becomes clear, too. Besides providing plenty of space for many, many enclosures, the company also has very big ideas and is looking a long way into the future. As demonstrated by its use of the latest, data-driven automation systems, Engineering Specialists is run by innovators and visionaries who are determined to get the most out of their panel building operations right now – and are always thinking ahead.
“I’m very much a visionary and see opportunities for doing things far better. When it comes to our customers’ automation processes, for example, we are helping to improve efficiency,” says John Miller, Vice President of Engineering Specialists. “When I took a look at our own panel building operations some years ago, however, I realised we weren’t doing a good job ourselves,” he adds. This realisation set the transformation in motion.
PRECISION AND SPEED COMBINED
Although the first CNC system for machining large enclosures put an end to laborious and noisy manual processing using jigsaws, requirements further increased. When the company moved into its new production building three years ago and the number of customers grew rapidly, this suddenly created capacity problems. “We were machining enclosures on multiple sides and handling higher volumes, and we just couldn’t keep up. Our lead time was simply too long,” reveals Miller. To resolve the bottleneck, the company received a shopfloor assessment from Rittal, who helped them implement a Rittal Perforex Laser Centre LC.
With Rittal’s ongoing guidance and the new solution, it was now possible to machine enclosures quickly and from five sides in a single operation. This was particularly beneficial in the case of stainless steel enclosures, which the company supplies to numerous customers in the food and beverages sector in Wisconsin. “The LC is much faster than a vertical CNC machine, and we don’t have all those residues and burrs to remove afterwards,” says Miller. What’s more, lots of projects require very precise, square cut-outs in the enclosures to insert small connectors. A task that previously involved manual drilling followed by laborious filing is now completed by the laser with maximum speed and precision. “The laser can machine an entire enclosure – from several sides – in just ten minutes,” he continues.
CONSISTENT WIRING
Miller then realised he had a further problem – the wiring process. “I asked myself how we could make it consistent. We build a control panel for one particular OEM every month, but no two employees wire in the same way. I wanted to achieve a professional result,” he explains. Miller was also looking to reduce the huge amount of wiring waste and speed things up by using pre-assembled and labelled wires. A consultation and ROI plan at the Rittal Application Center in Houston helped him choose the Rittal Wire Terminal WT C, a wire processing machine that has now been in operation at Engineering Specialists since 2024.
SWITCH TO EPLAN
Following an engineering assessment with Eplan about Engineering Specialists’ goals, a new approach to software was needed. According to Miller, automatic wire processing called for a hard switch to Eplan at the engineering stage. Younger engineers at the company and a growing number of customers were, he says, already recognising the benefits of Eplan over AutoCAD, which has been in use for over 40 years.
“We can see the engineering efficiency achieved with Eplan – thanks to the Data Portal, for instance, but also the use of Eplan in the machine control system,” emphasises Miller. “We’re starting more and more projects with Eplan, and we want to use the software throughout the organisation,” he adds. Miller describes his ultimate goal as follows: “Using the Eplan Platform to combine all the automation solutions in a first-rate, holistic production system that will maximise process efficiency.”
In the future, Engineering Specialists also intends to use Eplan Smart Wiring and integrate it into the workflow. “The software helps staff get the app-based wiring process exactly right. Moving forward, that means we won't necessarily need to have specialist staff who can read wiring plans working in panel building operations,” says a delighted Miller.
