Zahnen Technik GmbH

Assembling and wiring control cabinets quickly and reliably

Eplan Smart Mounting and Eplan Smart Wiring at Zahnen Technik, an Integrated Solutions Provider

Zahnen CTO Benedikt Ney: "We expect to reduce assembly times by thirty per cent once Smart Mounting has been comprehensively introduced."

Fitting, assembling, wiring: Zahnen Technik, an expert in water systems, has fundamentally optimised and accelerated their control cabinet manufacturing. Smart Production, as it is known, not only saves time, but also increases quality and helps offset the skilled labour shortage.

A complex project at the company Zahnen Technik can include 50 to 190 control cabinets plus smaller enclosures. The switchgear systems control entire potable water supply systems and wastewater management systems, and are fully assembled, connected and tested in the company’s facilities in Arzfeld, Germany, before being transported to the customers and commissioned there.

Smart Assembly

Smart Mounting from EPLAN directly addresses several pain points at Zahnen – first off, the shortage of skilled workers. It helps alleviate this situation by making it possible for less-experienced employees to complete a control cabinet – at a rapid speed and with a high degree of error-proofing. Technicians are guided step by step through the assembly of the control cabinet, including the mounting of rails, ducts and components. A screen at the workstation displays a 3D visualisation of the exact position of all these parts in the control cabinet; the worker places the components accordingly and confirms each step. At the same time, this tool shortens throughput times. As Zahnen Techink’s Benedikt Ney explains: “We expect to reduce assembly times by thirty per cent once Smart Mounting has been comprehensively introduced.”

Automated Wire Assembly

Zahnen began using EPLAN Smart Wiring – the tool for wiring control cabinets – already in 2023 and has now also invested in automated wire fabrication with a Rittal Wire Terminal, a fully automatic wire assembly machine that can output either chain bundles or prefabricated wires in a magazine.

However, in order to fully reap the benefits of automation here, a certain amount of preparatory work had to be carried out. Ney: “We are now working with multi-line and defined connections and have adapted the schematics and 3D macros accordingly to be able to route wires using EPLAN Pro Panel. We then transfer the data to the Rittal Wire Terminal and to EPLAN Smart Wiring.”

Wiring: At least 50 Per Cent Faster

What exactly are the benefits of smart control cabinet manufacturing? Udo Lindemans, the director of Zahnen’s E-Workshop, names time as a factor: “For just wiring the control cabinet, we’ve reduced the time needed by around 50 per cent thanks to the combination of Rittal Wire Terminal and Smart Wiring. Once everything has settled down and the projects have been planned accordingly, we expect this to increase to up to 75 per cent.” Wire prefabrication has also been accelerated. “The Rittal Wire Terminal can produce a complete wire set for a control cabinet in an hour. It goes without saying that this offers us the potential for growth.”

Yet that’s not all. At a time of skilled worker shortages, EPLAN helps get the job done. Lindemans: “At the same time we introduced the Rittal Wire Terminal, a non-specialist started working for us, wiring control cabinets perfectly with Smart Wiring.” The same applies for assembly, in this specific case for the fitting of DIN rails. Here, too, a less-experienced employee does a very good job of it. Lindemans: “You don’t need any specialist knowledge for mechanical assembly – it works great!”

The Advantages of Digitised Control Cabinet Manufacturing

Along with time and qualifications, there are two additional advantages: quality and appearance: Ney: “All the wires are labelled and fitted with end sleeves. This increases the service life and makes troubleshooting easier if needed. The wiring looks quite good and we’re showing that we work innovatively – both to our customers and to our employees. This enhances our image and is also a plus when recruiting personnel. New employees expect a digital workplace with integrated, end-to-end processes that support them in carrying out their tasks efficiently. That’s exactly what we can offer them.”

There is enormous potential for increasing efficiency in the wiring of control cabinets in particular – workers at Zahnen are already over 50 per cent faster, and speeds are rising.

Zahnen uses the Rittal Wire Terminal – the data from EPLAN Pro Panel are transferred directly to the automatic assembly machine and the wire sequence is synchronised with EPLAN Smart Wiring.

Paperless Wiring – In Manufacturing and On Site

The absence of printed schematics for assembly technicians is conspicuous. Instead, each workstation has a touch screen with a piggyback PC. Ney: “Our manufacturing was paperless even before the introduction of Smart Wiring, and we used EPLAN eView for wiring. Now we use it for testing and commissioning, as well as for coordinating in the event of changes or adjustments.”

Paperless manufacturing with Smart Wiring and eView offers many advantages, including the fact that many people can work on the same project and that the synchronisation between engineering and manufacturing is highly structured, thanks to the redlining and greenlining features. Lindemans: “We can very quickly make changes or make note of points that are still open. We often take advantage of this for projects routed and wired with Smart Wiring.” Zahnen technicians also enjoy paperless work on site during commissioning using electronic documentation, which is available everywhere via eView, hosted on the EPLAN Cloud. Along the entire process chain, the digital twin of the control cabinet – which also includes the assembly and wiring – enables much greater transparency and improved monitoring.

“Hardware” Standardisation as Well

Concerning the control cabinets themselves, Zahnen also relies on standardisation – with Rittal’s range of products. Ney: “Here we use the Rittal VX 25 series of products, including the expansion programme and climate control systems, which we calculate using RiTherm. We work a lot here with standardised and prefabricated components so that nothing has to be processed at the workstations. This saves time and is also the better concept in terms of workplace safety.”

End-to-End Data Consistency – From Tender to Commissioning

With Smart Mounting and Smart Wiring for control cabinet manufacturing, Zahnen has implemented two further building blocks in the end-to-end use of data in terms of the digital twin as well as in the greatest possible degree of automation. This enables greater throughput. Ney: “We are getting faster in manufacturing. We do have to put more effort into design, but overall we save a lot of time and simultaneously improve quality. This is the right path, which we will definitely continue to pursue.”