“In today’s manufacturing landscape, organizations must understand that a new technology piece is not the only significant factor, but combining it with a process change is also vital,” expresses Michael Jeschke, Regional Director, EPLAN Americas. This idea stems from Jeschke’s 22 years of experience in the field of metalworking and manufacturing. Over the years, he observed that enterprises were not able to seamlessly blend cutting-edge innovations with the organizational processes to efficiently drive profitability. Jeschke and his team have been studying the U.S. marketplace carefully and have recognized the gaps in various engineering processes such as machine and panel building. This is an area where EPLAN—a services and solutions provider in the fields of electrical, mechatronic engineering, and automation—brings the desired expertise.“In the U.S., we see a big possibility for change at the moment, and we bring all the technology pieces coupled with the know-how of the whole manufacturing and engineering process,” adds Jeschke.

EPLAN assists various machine and panel building companies in organizing their manufacturing processes. The company offers the ability to help enterprises achieve higher levels of manufacturing productivity with support from its team of experts, each with extensive experience in the field. EPLAN delivers comprehensive electrical control panel engineering solutions and services by effectively combining the changing trends in modern processes of manufacturing with innovative technologies. “We ensure that our clients have standardized, yet customizable systems in place and identify thought leaders to manage and streamline the process of manufacturing panels,” explains Jeschke.

EPLAN offers a virtualized electrical control panel designing platform called ProPanel that functions like a “digital twin.”

The kind of service our platform provides helps to easily organize the whole engineering process for a specific machine builder, a systems integrator, and a panel builder, eliminating the possibility an environment of independent workflows

With this software, mechanical engineers can access EPLAN’s online portals to obtain relevant information from the company’s extensive database, comprising information about the architecture and functioning of an electrical control panel, and effectively start building it with minimum downtime on the shop floor. ProPanel helps users connect to EPLAN’s Data Portal for gathering all the relevant datasets related to electrical panel engineering to develop a well-planned schematic simultaneously.Furthermore, EPLAN’s software solutions, offered in collaboration with Rittal, a global supplier of industrial and IT accessories, enable clients to build, install, and utilize hybrid electrical devices with ease. “The kind of service our platform provides helps to easily organize the whole engineering process for a specific machine builder, a systems integrator, and a panel builder, eliminating the possibility an environment of independent workflows,” expresses Jeschke.

To effectively cater to each of its client’s requirements, EPLAN has categorized their customers into three segments— manual, semi-automated, and fully automated—based on the benchmarking tests conducted in the past. By studying and understanding the workflows of these enterprises, EPLAN can precisely determine how long and expensive the process of manufacturing a control panel would be. With such detailed information, EPLAN can deliver services to improve the overall quality of panels with faster wiring and kitting along with vast machine knowledge on the shop floor.

Moving forward, EPLAN intends to position itself as the panel-building expert in the U.S. “If people are looking for panel builders and service providers to improve their business, EPLAN is the right business partner,”adds Jeschke. In the past, the company has been witnessing a double-digital year-on-year growth and aims to continue this trajectory with the best possible services and solutions for machine and panel builders.