Rittal turns Rittershausen plant into a factory of the future

New welding and handling robots impress visitors. 50 percent of the conversion has already been completed - the Industry 4.0 plant is scheduled for completion in 2020 with a total investment of 120 million euros. "In a year and a half, nothing here will look the same as it does now," explains Carsten Röttchen, Technical Managing Director at Rittal. The reason for Röttchen's sentence is that the new VX25 large enclosure system from Rittal is coming off the assembly line at the end of a new production line. The enclosure is the successor to the previous TS 8 enclosure.

Countless discussions with customers, a large-scale scientific user study in Germany, the USA and China as well as five years of development work lie behind it. According to the company, the VX25 means both simplification and time savings for Rittal customers and is also very stable. It safely accommodates densely packed control and switching systems that control the production of a car, for example, or heavyweight energy storage units in wind turbines.

"With innovations and new product launches, we also always modernize the production facilities," says Carsten Röttchen. And these are now being installed step by step. With the conversion, the company is implementing a highly complex project like a metamorphosis. Because if you look into the Rittershausen production facility at the moment, the transformation is clearly visible. Two large enclosure systems are currently being manufactured there. While the TS-8 enclosure is still being produced in 1,000-fold quantities on one side of the lines, the new Rittal large enclosure system VX25 is being built on the other.

When completed in 2020, the new Rittal production facility will have three roll forming lines, each 70 meters long. © Rittal

Networked better and faster
What is happening in Rittershausen is the beginning of a networked factory - also known as Industry 4.0-compliant production. A project that has it all. "A large part of this automation is based on intelligent and networked systems that will 'think ahead', plan automatically and initiate maintenance scenarios in the future," explains Norbert Peter, Plant Manager at Rittershausen. He adds: "This will enable us to avoid manual errors and become even faster at the same time." In the final stage, the new cabinet will grow on several profiling lines, each 70 meters long. The profiles are the "skeleton" of the new system and their shape contains a huge amount of Rittal expertise.

Of the total of 70 new welding and handling robots, 30 have already moved into the production halls and are in operation. To enable the machines to communicate with each other, hundreds of sensors monitor the production processes and carry out the procedures fully automatically.

Europe in 24 hours

Increasing networking is simply the logical response to the high demands in production and logistics. Faster-better-everywhere" is important in order to gain a competitive edge. After all, customers all over the world expect their deliveries quickly and punctually. Rittal will soon be offering a 24-hour delivery service throughout Europe. In order to live up to this promise, every production step in the highly complex value chain must be perfect. The vision is: "If a customer in Italy orders ten VX25s, our production management system here in Rittershausen will be informed fully automatically and control production," explains Röttchen.

The most important support for the enormous change process at the plant are the employees. A great deal of understanding and commitment is required when roof segments have to be changed, space made for new machines and floors renewed that have supported systems for 20 years. Röttchen and Peter are aware of the dedication of their employees and that their commitment cannot be taken for granted. They show great flexibility in the work process, for example by working extra shifts at the weekend. "This conversion is not an individual sprint, but a team marathon. The team is pulling together brilliantly - that deserves great respect," praises Röttchen. In order to understand and master the new world, the employees are undergoing further training at the in-house Loh Academy. This teaches them how the new systems work and how they are controlled.