Interview
"Enclosure construction must become significantly more efficient"
Under the motto "100 years of passion for technology and innovation", Phoenix Contact not only celebrated technological and personal connections from 100 years of company history at this year's Hannover Messe. The focus was also on the topic of "Efficiency in enclosure construction". In an interview with Andreas Mühlbauer, Andreas Schreiber, Vice President of the Industrial Cabinet Solutions business unit at Phoenix Contact, explains why this topic is becoming so important in times of the energy transition.
Mr. Schreiber, first of all, congratulations on your company's anniversary. Not only can your company look back on a century of history, it also plans for longer periods of time and regularly announces decade strategies. Why did you choose the "All Electric Society" as the focus of your business activities for this decade?
Sustainable, long-term corporate planning is to a certain extent part of our DNA as a family business. The "All Electric Society" gives us the opportunity to tackle two seemingly contradictory questions about the future: How can we allow consumption, i.e. enable billions of people to prosper, and protect the climate at the same time? The All Electric Society offers us a realistic perspective here. To make this vision a reality, electrical energy from renewable sources must be the new primary energy that we generate at low cost and make accessible to everyone.
And how can society, how can companies ensure that electrification progresses faster?
The first requirement is that sufficient electrical energy from renewable sources must be available. But that alone is not enough. We need to electrify all sectors of industry, private life and society. We also need to distribute this energy to everyone, which means that the energy distribution grids also need to be expanded enormously. And we must manage to intelligently control and regulate energy flows and store energy. This places enormous demands on the expansion of infrastructure, energy distribution and generation - right up to the new consumers that were not powered by electricity in the past, but by fossil fuels.
Could you explain this with an example?
Let's take the topic of heat pumps: Chancellor Scholz spoke in the news that 500,000 new heat pumps are to be installed every year from now on. This will require an enormous amount of electrical energy in places where tankers may still be driving up to fill oil tanks today. This also means that the energy distribution grids will have to be greatly expanded in order to bring energy from where it is currently available to where it is needed.
Can you be more specific?
It is estimated that we will have to install around 20 percent of the network on top of this to realize the All Electric Society, including the necessary switchgear. In addition, there are numerous control cabinets for a wide variety of applications that will be electrified. In short, we need a lot more control cabinets - and we have to see how we are able to cope with this enormous additional demand with the existing control cabinet manufacturing industry. We cannot meet this challenge by simply continuing with the same working methods from the past. We don't have that many skilled workers. We can't build up that many companies. This means that enclosure construction must become much more efficient. And that is why we are focusing more on this topic at this year's Hannover Messe.
You say that our enclosure construction processes need to become much more efficient in order to cope with the energy transition. How can we imagine this in concrete terms?
This starts, for example, with the fact that we provide the product data in a consistent digital format so that it can then beincorporated into theswitch cabinet manufacturer 's engineering processes. We also have software solutions thatcan be seamlessly integrated into the customer's process chain.For example, our ClipxEngineersoftware , whichprovides templates and configurators to obtain suggestions for defined functions in different application areas : Which products can be combined and how inorder torealizecertain functions? There are alsoseamless interfaces to various CAE systems.
Apart from engineering software, in which otherareas doyou see opportunities tobecome more efficient?
We need to take acloser look atall the process steps in production : from cutting mounting rails to length, assembling, marking and preparing conductors throughtowiring.Using worker assistance systems such as theClipxWireAssist,ergonomic workstations andautomatedmarking systems such as theThermomark E Series,we can optimize process reliability and speed . Tool-free connection technologiessuch as Push-In and Push-X can also be used to get themost efficiency out of the process.
You will be presentingthe solutions and components inthis process chainin a special area in Hall 9 . Buthow can you help a customer who doesn'tyet know exactly where tostart?
We offer a comprehensive range of consulting services to help customers become more efficient on an individual basis. We analyze value streamsand processes together, work with employees to develop solutions and designlayoutsand workstations to reduce assembly times, idle times andtravel times . Inaddition, we offer those whowant to outsource processes ourvalue-add service withpre-assembled assemblies according to customer requirements.
How much efficiencycan theoretically beincreased if all processes in enclosure construction are improved?
We have evaluated this for the different areas. If efficiency is defined as the desired result per time, then efficiency can be increased by 50 to 60%through the consistent use of digital data andergonomic workstationsin mounting rail preparation, mounting rail assembly and ladder preparation. Automated marking solutionssuch as Thermomark E Series caneven increase efficiency by 150% . With thenew,tool-free Push-X connection technology , efficiency can beincreased by an additional35 %. Ofcourse ,you have to considerthe starting situation forthese potential increases ,which varies from company to company.
According to estimates, more than five million new control cabinets are needed worldwide for the expansion of distribution grids alone. Canthis be achieved?
At the very least, no company that builds control cabinets can claim that it is not affected . It affects everyone. And anyone who is not concerned with increasing efficiency, digitalization, lean processes and partial to full automation will not be able to play a significant role in realizing the All Electric Society. With ourscalable portfolio,we meet every customer in theenclosure manufacturing industry where they aretoday .It' s justa matter ofsetting the right course for tomorrowtoday.
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