Text Birgit Hagelschuer, Gerald Scheffels ––– Photography
Should the servo cable be 14 or 14.50 metres long, and should it be laid above or below the conveyor belt drive? There is no need for assembly staff at Hahn Automation GmbH in Rheinböllen to ask themselves these kinds of questions. A glance at the installation route shown in the clear, standardised Eplan drawing on their tablet is sufficient.
This approach is commonplace in enclosure production, but Hahn Automation also uses it outside the enclosure – to be precise, between enclosure and machine when laying cables for its complex and highly automated systems. Built for applications such as the assembly of automotive seating and instrument panels, each plant system is a complete one-off. Workers have a great deal of freedom when assembling such unique systems. The management team at Hahn Automation is aiming to limit such freedom where it has the potential to result in errors and additional costs.
This is something that has occasionally happened when laying cables. As Dirk Scherer, Manager Electrical Engineering, explains: “We lay a large number of cables for each plant system, including expensive servo cables. If the lengths of these cables have only been approximated, either surplus cable goes to waste or a cable is sometimes too short. On top of that, the installation routes can be random and may not end up being optimal. We wanted to standardise things, including the appearance, and make the process more efficient.”
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Electrical design engineers have been using Eplan for around 15 years, regardless of the plant system’s size or the target industry. As Dirk Scherer, Manager Electrical Engineering, explains: “We create the schematics using Eplan Electric P8 and send the bills of materials and I/O lists it generates to the procurement and manufacturing departments.” The company’s electrical engineers have also been using Eplan Pro Panel for their design engineering work for a good two years now. “This doesn’t just speed up the production of enclosures – it also increases their quality, thanks to the 3D visualisation alone,” Scherer adds.
BETA TEST OF CABLE PROD
The fact that Eplan was planning to launch a new tool – Cable proD – for this very task was highly convenient. This CAD tool can lay cables virtually in the field and – based on schematics and MCAD data – automatically determine both the required cable length and the installation routing. The exact lengths are then fed back into the Eplan project.
Hahn Automation Group agreed with Eplan that it would test Cable proD using the specific example of a plant system for the automated production of automotive components with a cycle time of 41 seconds. The system has 18 workstations that need to be supplied with power and signals. What’s more, since some of the steps are complex – cold shrinking with liquid nitrogen, for example – around 300 sensor cables, 50 power cables and 11 servo cables had to be laid.
RITTAL – PREFERRED PARTNER
Rittal is a preferred partner of Hahn Automation for the hardware aspect of enclosure production. Machined modules from the VX and AX series are supplied by Elmatec, a partner of Rittal, and are used in the clearly structured assembly line work. When it comes to climate control, Blue e+ cooling units from Rittal ensure maximum energy efficiency. Even though requirements are modest (around 150 enclosures per year), in-house production is to be maintained – for flexibility reasons as much as anything else. In the challenging specialist mechanical engineering sector, keeping design and production close together is an advantage – as are cables that are laid perfectly and in a standardised way, both on and in machinery.
RIGHT FIRST TIME
Hahn Automation Group was completely won over by the results of the test. “The cables are bundled and routed through cable ducts in 3D. The system reliably determines the cable lengths, so you don’t have to take measurements first or make corrections afterwards. In addition, staff can work quickly and without making any mistakes, because the routing paths are displayed in the viewer,” Scherer continues. Another advantage is that the expensive servo cables can now be produced without any wastage, saving both money and copper while also lowering CO₂ emissions.
SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS
Following the successful test, it has been decided that Hahn Automation Group will roll out Eplan Cable proD in Rheinböllen first and then at other sites. This makes sense for the long term as well, as automated cable routing is a good fit for the future of plant system manufacturing and enclosure production. “We’re certain we won’t still be drawing schematics in the future – we’ll be configuring them instead,” emphasises Scherer.
Hahn Automation has already done a lot of work in preparation for this, including a macro project, a basic project and a device database that is based on the Eplan Data Portal and kept meticulously up to date. Scherer describes the result as follows: “We can already compile our power requirements and climate control needs automatically. Consequently, we are even more efficient and can focus more on innovative design work.”
