The global site of the UK's leading magazine for automation, motion engineering and power transmission
19 March, 2024

LinkedIn
Twitter
Twitter link

€120m investment applies Industry 4.0 to building enclosures

22 June, 2018

Rittal is investing €120m to build a new plant to manufacture large enclosures at its Rittershausen site in Germany, based on Industry 4.0 principles. It is also installing high-tech lines at a greenfield site in Haiger to produce its new VX25 generation of large enclosures.

“Our goal is to establish the world’s most modern centre for manufacturing large enclosures,” says Carsten Röttchen, managing director of International Production at Rittal. “To this end, we have started the transformation into the age of Industry 4.0. We are setting the next standard in the Rittal production system for our worldwide plants.

“We will be automating further sub-processes, increasing data consistency and integrating the production process into a completely digitised value chain through a manufacturing execution system,” he adds.

The Haiger plant is due to enter production at the end of 2018. Automated lines for mounting plates, profiling and welding systems, have already been installed. When completed in 2020, the plant will have three profiling systems, each 70m long. The horizontal and vertical frame sections for the VX25 system will be manufactured in one process. The site’s automated welding systems include 31 robots.

Rittal is using more than 30 robots to build its new generation of large enclosures

The automated profiling, welding and panel manufacturing facilities in Germany will act as a model for Rittal plants worldwide. “The development of the new VX25 production lines was only the first step on the way to the digital future of the Rittal production facilities,” Röttchen explains. “The global transformation of Rittal’s production towards Industry 4.0 is already going flat out.”

The changes have already started at Rittal’s Valeggio plant in Italy, where Industry 4.0 principles are being applied to produce the company's Blue e+ cooling systems.




Magazine
  • To view a digital copy of the latest issue of Drives & Controls, click here.

    To visit the digital library of past issues, click here

    To subscribe to the magazine, click here

     

Poll

"Do you think that robots create or destroy jobs?"

Newsletter
Newsletter

Events

Most Read Articles