"In a year and a half, nothing here will look the same as it does now," explains Carsten Röttchen, Technical 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 TS-8 enclosure. For Rittal customers, the VX25 means simplification and time savings. It is also stable and safely accommodates densely packed control and switchgear systems that control the production of a car, for example, or heavyweight energy storage systems in wind turbines.

Metamorphosis non-stop
"With innovations and new product launches, we also always modernize the production facilities," says Carsten Röttchen. These are now being installed step by step. With the conversion, the company is implementing a highly complex project. Two large enclosure systems are currently being manufactured in the Rittershäuser production facility. While the TS-8 enclosure is still being produced in 1000-fold quantities on one side of the lines, the new Rittal VX25 large enclosure system is being built on the other.

What is happening in Rittershausen are the beginnings of a networked factory - also known as Industry 4.0-compliant production. "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 in Rittershausen. He adds: "This will enable us to avoid manual errors and become even faster at the same time." When completed, the new cabinet will grow on several roll forming lines, each 70 meters long.

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 the answer to the high demands in production and logistics. 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. "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. They learn how the new systems work and how they are controlled. The relevant training courses are fully booked for weeks. There are already more than 250 registrations. as