In industry, a lack of speed is a fundamental problem in the face of global competition. A lot of potential can be unlocked by speeding up engineering processes. Eplan has therefore redesigned its product portfolio so customers can benefit from a much simpler, more powerful solution – but at no extra cost. Thomas Weichsel, Vice President Software Portfolio at Eplan, explains how the Eplan Platform 2026 is helping electrical engineers forge ahead.
Text Birgit Hagelschuer ––– Photography
THOMAS WEICHSEL,
Vice President Software Portfolio, Eplan
In developing the new Eplan Platform, our number one aim was simplification. Our existing portfolio had grown over the course of 20 years and consisted of lots and lots of small elements – with hundreds of articles and countless ways of combining them. This led to complex decision-making processes and, in some cases, our customers ended up with incomplete solutions.
With the Eplan Platform 2026, we have tailored everything to our target groups’ use cases and workflows, which has greatly increased transparency regarding the possible combinations within our portfolio. Every product now incorporates all the relevant functions and, in the case of our new industry packages, all the necessary templates, analyses and data that users need to execute their specific tasks perfectly. Customers therefore get fully inclusive packages at no additional cost. This reduces the time to first value and makes the platform much simpler and more transparent for users. As confirmed by feedback from customers who have already tried it out, the added value is really significant.
As far as we’re concerned, AI is a strategic technology, not a short-lived trend. We’re not merely following this development – we’re shaping it! Our goal is longterm, forward-looking solutions that bring clear benefits to engineering. That’s why one of the things we’re focusing on is ensuring our customers can access support round the clock. With the Eplan Cloud and the Eplan Platform’s hybrid products, we are bringing the concrete benefits of AI to the customer.
As an example, AI-based data interpreters help make existing project data, such as legacy data or data from other systems, usable for customers, both now and in the future. AI is a supporting technology – it carries out routine tasks and reduces the daily workload, but is no substitute for an engineer’s expertise.
The cloud is a key element of modern-day engineering. It facilitates the secure, global exchange of project data and the enhancement of information – for instance, via our Collaboration Apps such as the Project Viewer, which are already being utilised by thousands of users within companies. Article data is another important aspect.
Yes, that’s right – and a huge amount of time is invested in creating this data, maintaining it and making it usable for engineering purposes or for other processes such as procurement, production and servicing/maintenance. The centralised management of data in the cloud is useful in this context, too. Customers can use centralised article management in the Eplan Cloud to make this data available on a company-wide basis or across different sites. We also offer services that help ensure this data is always kept up to date.
