The range of services focuses on topics such as delivery capability, online services, cloud engineering, industrialization in control and switchgear engineering, product innovations and data sovereignty.

The current pandemic is a tough test of strength for many companies. Surviving the crisis and emerging from it stronger is the primary goal. "We need strong and reliable partners who can support companies in the long term - through the crisis and far beyond. We need future-oriented partners with innovative strength and enablers for industrial transformation," says Uwe Scharf, Managing Director Business Units and Marketing at Rittal.

The pressure to change is enormous: companies need to question outdated solutions and processes and introduce more measures to save costs and increase efficiency than ever before. Eplan, Rittal and German Edge Cloud as part of the Friedhelm Loh Group are supporting their customers on this journey. Sebastian Seitz, CEO of Eplan, adds: "100 percent digital data as a single source of truth - available from planning to engineering to production - is the basis for further automation. Industrialization in control and switchgear manufacturing and the associated transformation are in full swing. Absolute data consistency is the basic requirement here."

Practical - the lecture program at SPS Connect

As part of SPS Connect, Thomas Michels, Senior Director Cloud Business Software at Eplan, will be giving a presentation on the topic of "Networked engineering in the cloud". Customers and automation experts were actively involved in the run-up to the presentation. The presentation paints a real picture of today's automation requirements in engineering and provides valuable recommendations for action. Eplan eView is also on the digital agenda - as is the new Data Standard, which Eplan is proactively driving forward. Around 60 manufacturers with around 80,000 pieces of data have already made their components available in the Eplan Data Portal in accordance with the new standard.

Another speaker is Dr. Dirk Pieler, Head of the Industry Business Unit at Rittal. In his presentation "What counts now - industrialization in control and switchgear manufacturing", he will show that industrialization is already paying off much earlier than is often expected. The focus here is on the digital twin, which links all process steps from engineering to mechanical enclosure processing, wiring and testing through to service. Configuration tools, system technology for enclosures and control cabinets as well as automation solutions from wire assembly to the mechanical processing of flat parts and complete enclosures - and the 24-hour delivery service in Germany - provide further support for greater efficiency.

In response to the changing market conditions, Eplan adapted its business to the home office environment at an early stage. All training and consulting services have already been offered online for months. Training courses that were previously held at training centers throughout Germany are now offered online.

Innovative - product solutions for industry and IT

Rittal is presenting new developments in enclosure and cooling technology. These include the new VX SE single enclosure, the AX plastic enclosure and the new energy-efficient Blue e+ outdoor cooling units. Rittal has now completed its compact enclosure range with its new AX plastic enclosures.

Rittal's other product highlights include numerous new developments in the IT infrastructure sector. The focus is on the new VX IT Rack and RiMatrix Next Generation (NG), the future platform for building IT infrastructures. With Rimatrix NG, Rittal has developed a new modular system for the flexible, secure and fast construction of data centers.

Sister company German Edge Cloud will also be presenting its new development Oncite - the first AI-based and real-time capable edge cloud solution for factory-internal Industry 4.0 processes.